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M.L. Anderson- Millions of V-8s with 90 deg crankshafts and 100s of thousands of V-8s with 180 deg crankshafts have been successfully built. The big advantage of the 180 deg crankshaft is the extraction of exhaust gasses from what is essentially two four cylinder engines, as Jan stated, and for this reason they have been largely limited to race or very high performance engines such as the Ferrari 308/328/430, all of which have 90 degree blocks. My 308 GTS worked just fine.
90 degree blocks and 180 degree crankshafts work just fine, as Ferrari can attest. What was the point of your post? There were myriads of engineering details needing to be fixed on WW-I engines for which they used as much trial and error as theoretical mathematical solutions. Much harder to do when you have to do everything with a slide rule. Aerodynamics and aircraft design were much the same. Some theory, some stiffness rules of thumb, much trial and error. Daimler's 220 PS, straight 8, Mercedes D.IV was a good example of unknown unknowns. It worked fine in two seat, single engine aircraft with relatively rigid engine mounts, but had severe torsional issues when mounted in twin engine aircraft with insufficient structure to dampen the torsional vibrations of the long block and crankshaft.
Eventually Birkigt and company worked out the details.
Taz
Terry Phillips
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