Watch This Engine Get Cut in Half
YouTubers slice a four-cylinder engine in half to analyze what’s inside.
People do a lot of things with crate engines — from simple replacements for blown motors to powering project cars. However, the intrepid father and son team behind the YouTube show What’s Inside? took delivery of an aluminum four-cylinder engine for the sole purpose of slicing it in half. Of course, that’s what they do with everything on their resume.
Obviously, it would have been cooler to slice open a 250,000-mile 4.0-liter Jeep engine with a windowed block. Hell, we suspect some of our forum members have done that on their own, out of boredom…
“Hey Larry, what are you up to today?”
“Oh, not much. Just sipping some beer and slicing through this old Cherokee engine I pulled out two years ago.”
“I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”
“You live three states away…”
CHECK OUT: What Forum Members Are Saying About What’s Inside
Okay, so the What’s Inside? crew cuts through the engine a little more methodically than Larry and his powered-by-boredom strength. Some high-powered cutting tools get the job done in the video above. After a lengthy pitch for Mobil 1, an industrial-strength saw does 95 percent of the work, but they require a press and a reciprocating saw to finish the job.
We’re not positive what engine it is, but with what appears to be aluminum everything, four valves per cylinder, and a coil-on-plug setup, we suspect it’s pretty modern. It looks different from a General Motors Ecotec, but the setup is generally similar.
Regardless of which crate engine they’ve destroyed, the cutaway gives a pretty good view of the cylinders, heads, and assorted other bits. We wish the show’s hosts knew more than the basics about engines and could have explained it better. But that said, they were the ones who (apparently) got Mobil 1 to sponsor them splitting the engine.
If you’re upset by a split engine block, do yourself a favor and don’t watch any of their other videos — like the one where they cut open a vintage Pac-Man arcade game.