British Racing Motors V16

The British Racing Motors V16 was a supercharged 1.5 litre (90.8 cu in) V-16 cylinder racing engine built by British Racing Motors (BRM) for competing in Formula One motor racing in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Designed in 1947 and raced until 1954–55, it produced 600 bhp (450 kW) at 12,000 rpm, although test figures from Rolls-Royce suggested that the engine would be able to be run at up to 14,000rpm.

The very complex engine was exceptionally powerful for the time, but it initially proved a disappointment, possessing poor reliability so that cars either did not start or failed to finish races. In the 1952 Formula One season, after BRM withdrew their V16 engined cars before a race in Turin while attempting to enlist Juan Manuel Fangio, leaving only Ferrari as the main contestants with no effective competition, the racing organisers abandoned the Formula One series and ran the remaining year's races as Formula Two.

The engine was designed by a team consisting of Peter Berthon, Harry Mundy (who had designed engines for Jaguar), Eric Richter, and Frank May. It was conceived as basically two 750cc V8 engines back-to-back with cam drives and gears in the centre of the engine. Components were manufactured by various British companies, including English Steel – the crankshaft, Standard Motors – machining of the main engine components, sump, etc., and David Brown – the gears. Eventually there were around 350 companies that provided support to the project, including Rolls-Royce (RR) who designed and manufactured the two-stage centrifugal supercharger. Testing of the supercharger by Rolls-Royce involved the test specimen being mounted on the front of a Merlin supercharger. (RR personnel stated that that was just the kind of after-hours activity they enjoyed). Rolls-Royce also developed the flame traps for the inlet manifold, used to prevent a backfire causing an explosion in the highly compressed fuel/air mixture in the manifold. The flame trap was a feature not previously used on car engines, due to the relatively low amounts of supercharging then in use, but it was by then a necessity on high-powered piston aero engines such as the Merlin and Griffon. Twin-pot carburettors were designed for the engine by SU.

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