What happened to the W8...?

[Roop]

Remember the VW Passat with the 4 litre W8 engine...? Was the engine ever used elsewhere - Phaeton perhaps...? Seems it was put into a couple of thousand previous gen Passats and subsequently was quietly dropped.

I know there's a couple of W8 owners on PH. Is there a technical reason for it being dropped...? Poor economy...? Poor power delivery or lack of bhp/litre...? Just too expensive to make...?

I always though that it would be a stormer of an engine. Perhaps a very different replacement for an ageing RV8 in a TVR...



Edited to add pic

Edited by Roop on Wednesday 6th February 13:53

[Hereward]

I've always wondered why they never dropped it into the Touareg. They used Audi's 4.2 V8 instead.

[chuntington101]

Hereward said:

I've always wondered why they never dropped it into the Touareg. They used Audi's 4.2 V8 instead.

maybe the more troditional V8 was easier to make. and if it fits no problems they may as well use it.

what was the bottom end of the W8 like?? i heard somewhere the W12 was very weak!

thanks Chris.

[Roop]

It looks like a big and complex engibe from the above photo, so I am guessing it was a cost thing that stopped them. Shame.

[350Matt]

The 'W' format is a gimmick pure and simple, the packadging advantages are outweighed by the fact that you have to run exhaust ports alongside inlet ports for a lot of the engine. So you heat up the inlet charge & require better cooling for the head etc.

an old colleague of mine worked on the Bugatti program and said that within 200 miles of start-up the middle two plugs in the W16 had melted and you were down to 14 cylinders and 'only' 940ish bhp instead of 1100ish



Matt

[Roop]

Interesting little article on the W8 here... :

http://www.carpages.ca/go/autonews/10232004,techni...

[sniff petrol]

I think it was more of a test-bed for the W12/16 that were then to be fited to the Bentley CGT/Phaeton/Veyron