General Motors Detroit Diesel 3-71 Supercharged Diesel Engine (Technic Motor): A LEGO® creation by Angelo Filipelli : MOCpages.com

General Motors Detroit Diesel 3-71 Supercharged Diesel Engine (Technic Motor)

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A small Technic engine based off of a General Motors Detroit Diesel 3-71 supercharged 2-cycle diesel engine.

About this creation

For once a moc that isn't a boat! This is a functioning Technic engine, much like the ones included in most large Technic sets. They are usually wheel-and-gear driven or motorized. This is a display model although it can be motorized using a Power Functions motor. I built this engine after my favorite series of engines, General Motors Detroit Diesels. These motors are American built, 2-cycle and supercharged. The 2-cycle variants (The most well known) were used from 1938 up until the early 1980's. They are not rare engines, they were used in many, many kinds of equipment, (boats and marine use mostly) such as rock crushers, motor graders, scrapers, forklifts, military cargo trains, locomotives, generators, irrigation pumps, and the list goes on. They were very popular engines, since they were lightweight, inexpensive, powerful, and simplistic. They went from 1 cylinder to 16 cylinders. If you have ever seen a muscle car with shotgun headers, chances are that the finned barrel-looking-thingamajig underneath the air intake is a Detroit's supercharger blower. It is said that on construction sites, equipment powered by Detroit Diesels were commonly robbed of their valuable superchargers in order to supercharge muscle car engines. Detroits also had their cons. Worst of all, if they sat for an extended period of time, thier fuel rack pins would seize inside their injectors and may cause the engine to run away at full power until the engine dies. Detroits also caused major hearing issues, in fact, they are so loud that people dubbed them "screamin' jimmy." Onto the model.

Shown here is the engine with the valve cover removed. The firing order for this model and the real engine is 1-2-3. The intake hose for the supercharger blower holds the valve cover in place.

Here is the model's supercharger blower compared to a REAL one. The Lego engine's blower is actually built with a green trash can, two 2x4 round plates, and 2 cross axles. The real blower is not off of a 3-71 though, it is off of a newer version, a 3-53. This only means that the cylinder displacement is 53 cubic inches, and the 53's blower impellers had 2 lobes instead of the 71's 3.

The whole engine next to the real supercharger. The blower's position on the engine also determined the rotation. Usually if it is on the left side, it is a marine version.

Here is a picture of a real 3-71. If you may notice on the Lego motor, it does not have the crankcase covers. I could not fit them on the tiny engine blocks.

Other side of the real 3-71. Here you can see the blower, identical to the one shown above.

Comments

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I made it

Angelo Filipelli

December 9, 2017

Quoting Builder Allan Cool! Very detailed looking engine. Nice to see the real one too for comparison :-)

Thanks! There are lots of other configurations, but I only found 3 green blocks :P

I like it

Builder Allan

December 8, 2017

Cool! Very detailed looking engine. Nice to see the real one too for comparison :-)

I made it

Angelo Filipelli

September 22, 2017

Quoting killswitch95 (Last Name is Dank AF) I came for the MOC, I commented because Ryuko...

Thanks for looking! Heh, I get a lot of attention because of this Ryoku icon. I never got into Yu-Gi-Oh, I just watched it time to time.

I like it

killswitch95 (Last Name is Dank AF)

September 21, 2017

I came for the MOC, I commented because Ryuko...

I made it

Angelo Filipelli

September 19, 2017

Quoting Seaman SPb

It remains to assemble the ship around it!

Good idea! I would have to make a heat exchanger, blower hoses, sea water pump though. Detroit diesels were also VERY common marine engines due to their high-speed capability and simplicity.