Vehicles · Other Engines
Anything that goes bang in order
Lawn tractors, generators, chainsaws, the compressor in the corner of the shop. If it has a crankshaft, somebody in the crew has taken it apart and put it back together with one bolt left over.
Configurations
The layouts, ranked by how much we love them
Flat / boxer
Pistons punching outward, low centre of gravity, that uneven rumble from unequal-length headers. Four Subarus in the ledger says where the crew stands.
High-revving inline-four
Small displacement, big cams, VTEC crossover at 5,800. The Type R's B18C5 makes 108 hp per litre with no turbo, and it did that in 1997.
Wankel rotary
No pistons, no valves, one moving part per rotor. Drinks oil by design, sounds like a chainsaw, revs like nothing else.
Inline-six
Perfectly balanced, long, smooth, and in Toyota's hands nearly immortal. The 1FZ in an 80-series will do 500,000 km if you change the oil.
Diesel
The BJ40's 3B: 3.4 litres, four cylinders, indirect injection, ninety-ish horsepower and torque forever. It will start at minus thirty with fresh glow plugs. Eventually.
American V8
The Grand Prix taught us about pushrods and TH350s. Cheap, lazy, torquey, and the sound every Ontario cruise night runs on.
Outboard
A motorcycle engine bolted to a gearbox in the water. The two-strokes smell like childhood. The four-strokes start.
Small engine
Generators, pressure washers, snow blowers, the lawn tractor everyone learned to drive on. A Honda GX160 is the most reliable engine on earth and it costs less than a tire.
Two-stroke
Fire every revolution, no valves, premix in a jerry can. Banned from most things, loved by everyone who ever ported one.
Shop
The engines that keep the other engines running
The compressor
Sixty-gallon, two-stage, and the single best tool purchase in the shop. Impact guns, die grinders, blowing out the BJ40's frame rails.
The pressure washer
Hot water, gas engine. The underside of a forty-year-old Land Cruiser does not respond to cold water and hope.
The generator
For the night a project needs to run at a friend's driveway with no outlet. Honda inverter, quiet enough that the neighbours only glare.
Community
Got a car, a road, or a rusty project? You're in.
JCru Moto is a crew of car people. Send us your builds, your favourite stretch of tarmac, or the thing in your garage that almost runs.