Beretta.net

i had a pre-caffeine brain fart and was thinking what engine was the most reliable engine ever dropped in a car.

google and wiki brought this page up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward%27s_10_Best_Engines

not being very educated in the mechanics department, i figured you guys could give some input on this. how thorough is this wiki page and where do the v6 engines in our cars fall in comparison?

(keep in mind i dont know that much about mechanics )

Best depends what features do you value.

Reliable however is whole different story, but I'd guess it would be some kind of truck engine used on long-haulers.

i was thinking in the terms of longevity, efficiency, and ease/cost of up keep. japanese cars used to be the end all, be all of longevity. my cousin got close to 300k out of a 87(i think thats the correct year) honda crx without so much as changing a hose or belt. he drove the shirt out of it too. my brother did the same with an 85 toyota 4X4 that he literally ABUSED. he drove it into a pond deep enough to cover the hood, drug it out, towed it home, dried the distributor and drove it to work to days later. of course he had trash bags on the seats to keep his pants dry. even with his abuse it died around 320k.

just wondering where our car's engines fall in the grand scheme of things......

I had a 305 that went 298k. The engine was still good, but I wrecked the car. It had an easy life untill I got it at 150k.

I've heard of 3.1's going 260k and the timing chain goes. I remember the last thing they said, " don't need to change the chain, it made this far and it's fine".

I believe the 3100 in the Base I sold DTMAce lasted until 295,xxx or so. I've heard of the 5.7 Vortec in Chevy/GMC trucks going till 400,000 with the proper maintainence as well as the old 5.7 TBI motors going over 500,000. It all depends on how the motor was maintained.

Had a 92 2.2/auto Cavalier click past 300K and the purpose of that vehicle was to be just driven in to the ground. So it didnt see much maintenance let alone repairs to the motor/trans.

BMW rocking the list almost every year ftw

I personally like the chevy 350 small block. put some power down without the weight, strange sound, and fuel guzzling featres of a v8.

cant mess with honda. 2 on the list with 1,000,000 + miles on them.

The GM OHV V6's and V8's are the best made IMO.

They have been made in incredible numbers, to be sold in all types of vehicles for all types of different purposes, while being able to handle 300,000miles with little to no engine maintenance (Tell that to a BMW or a non diesel Benz owner).

The Ward's list is based on new or redesigned/enhanced engines for that given year. SO that doesn't leave the GM's with much of a chance to show up every year. The 6.0L Hybrid V8 showed up for one year, but is still the same basic V8 that's been around since 1997 or so (LS1) and it's design is heavily based on the old SBC which is over 60 years old now.

I love my GSR. That b18c1 just loves to be beaten. And my 87 integra ls (zc motor) went through 60k miles of hell being owned by me and always ran great. That thing pulled double duty as a year round dd plus dragracer/ autocrosser and i sold it with 210k running like a top.

I love me an SBC.

Godlike wrote:I love my GSR. That b18c1 just loves to be beaten. And my 87 integra ls (zc motor) went through 60k miles of hell being owned by me and always ran great. That thing pulled double duty as a year round dd plus dragracer/ autocrosser and i sold it with 210k running like a top.

exactly what my accord does. keeps on rolling along.

I don't think there is any question in my mind that the sbc motors have dominated the market for much longer then anything else, for work or play. What other engine can you find that has been swapped into more cars then a ls1-lsx engines?

I love the engines in our cars but the intake gaskets really put a lot of GM cars in the junkyards. They are just to expensive to fix around when the go bad 130,000-160,000 seems to be the normal.

Berettas#1 wrote:I love the engines in our cars but the intake gaskets really put a lot of GM cars in the junkyards. They are just to expensive to fix around when the go bad 130,000-160,000 seems to be the normal.

My 'old' Camaro is powered by a ~300k mile 350, originally from a 3/4 ton GMC touring van. I had to replace the crankshaft and bearings because the engine had been run out of oil and driven and driven (hauling that luxury van around, no less) -which is when the engine was given to me. It is smoking a bit now, more than just the typical valve-stem seal leak causing smoke upon start-up, but it still runs strong. Having only two injectors, both visible during operation and easily accessible, makes that part of the engine cheap and easy to diagnose and fix. Interchangeability of parts and available aftermarket really makes the SBC one of the best engines around, IMO.

However, I have worked on cars and trucks long enough to know that this is anecdotal evidence, and the most reliable car engines (Weba is right about long-haul 'tractor trailer' engines being the most reliable, save for actual aircraft engines -which I've also worked on) are Japanese-made, particularly Honda, Nissan, and Toyota. I have nothing against Mazda, but Mitsubishi makes powerful and efficient engines, not reliable ones. I've even seen some seriously impressive lifespans from KIAs, but my experience with them is limited enough that I'll classify the ~300k mile rust-bucket Sophia that dumped the oil due to a poorly-tightened drain-plug that kept going for another several miles at highway speeds and sustained no damage to also be anecdotal, but that car simply would have run until the rust broke it in half. The Nissan VG30E series is one of the best Nissan engines (except for the timing-belt, which is just a stupid way to drive internal engine components). The ~300+ HP Infinity Q-45's VH45DE is awesome and will last to 400k miles if maintained correctly, almost any Toyota engine made that doesn't use a timing-belt, especially their low-compression four-cylinders and straight-sixes, and anything made by Honda (except, again, for the idiotic timing-belts ) are consistently good quality, and will last as long as you treat them correctly.

As for the Beretta engines, the 2.0s and 2.2s are reliable enough and get good gas-mileage if driven politely, but lack power to drive any other way. The Quad engines are very powerful for the weight and displacement, but are known to warp heads, and are a bit high-strung (I still want one in one of my Berettas though ). The 2.8s and 3.1 MPFIs are okay, just listen for bearings going out between 120k and 200k (which they don't always do, but we are talking about consistency here), and the 3100s are the worst just because of GM's use of plastic LIMGs .

As for my Beretta engines, my 3800 is, as Kurt used to say, a dinosaur, but it doesn't weigh much more than a 60-degree, despite having the almost unwarpable iron heads, and should reach 200-300k without problems, with proper maintenance.

We should start a 'sister thread' discussing the worst engines ever made, so long as we can keep the discussion from getting personal .