Meet Sōichirō, the fully working engine that is developed by only one 16 year old guy #engines

In this Post, I am going to show you a project called Sōichirō. He’s a one-man project. Piston, Rod, Crankshaft, Valvetrain, Cylinderhead, all kinds of Bearings, the Turbo and every little not so small part in this engine is completely developed by myself.

28 Dec 2015

But before I show you my work, I just want you to tell why this engine’s name is Sōichirō…

“Success represents the 1% of your work which results out of 99% failure”

The man who said this, Sōichirō Honda, is my biggest idol. And he’s the guy I have the most respect for, because he followed his dreams. I don’t want to be like him. I like his personality, the fact that he loved what he did and his culture. He’s the guy who helped me pushing the boundaries of the possible. He motivated me to go to my limit and beyond by looking back at his story of life.

If I may introduce myself: My name is Glenn, I am 16 years old and live in a fairly small city in Germany. I didn’t study (yet) nor visited any special courses. I still go to school.

I started with this project in September. The goal was to create an engine that runs incredibly smooth, has a lot of power while consuming little space, and can provide both Fuel efficiency as well as Sportiness. The result of some weeks of thinking and doing sketches is the goal to develop a engine with the following specs:

SPECS

Dry-sump lubricated 1.2 litre 60° V6 with Direct Injection, Bi-Turbocharging , a Hybrid-system and a full variable(Timing and Lift) DOHC Valvetrain. That results in a peak RPM of 10500 and a max. boost pressure of 2 bar. That, combined with the hybrid-system should bring out about 350HP, maybe more, maybe less.

Three months later, I done a fairly big amount of work on my project. Hours of developing every not so little part of a piece in the engine were spent during the time that was left after coming home from school and in the weekends. I am very happy and proud to come this far. There is still much left, the Drivetrain is not completed yet, I decided that the Valvetrain need’s to get a complete redesign because I was not happy with the current one and things like wiring, the Turbos, bearings, screws and connecting pieces are still not done. But every day, I’m getting closer to my goal: My own engine.

I don’t like what I do. I don’t do this because I have too much free time. I don’t do this just to get a job at a car manufacturer. I do this because I love it. I live for doing this.

Call me a moron, someone who want’s to do something he can’t do, someone who does everything wrong. I know that I do everything wrong. When I’m looking at the first design of the piston, I can’t believe I was so dumb because it’s very bad. That was 3 months ago. What am I going to say in 2 years? I don’t know, but I’m sure I will know that everything I do now isn’t good enough. But I’m learning out of every second I work on Sōichirō.

If you like this post, like it and share it if you want. If you want to know something or have anything critical to say, just comment on this :)

When there’s much progress, I will come up with another post to keep you updated!

Glenn :)

PS: Sorry for my bad English :D

Comments

That’s remarkable. You are gonna go places son

I really hope that I will do! And thanks for the compliment! :)

will it fit in my Honda?

Probably yes ;)

This is awesome, Glenn! Great work. What you have to remember is that future you will be very happy that present you struggled through this. You’ve already realised in just three months that you can make the piston better, imagine how brilliant everything will be in a few years! Keep it up, mate, you’ll reap the rewards in the future.

Man, thanks! That’s really nice to hear that! Yeah, I just want to do the best I can and constantly improve what I do. And it’s very awesome that a CarThrottle Author gives me such a compliment! Thank you very much :)

simply aweasome! the fact that you are doing this by yourself is amazing! wish you a lot of luck with this aweasome engine!.
P.S are you thinking in variable valve timing? im no expert but it looks like you could fit something like vtec (no honda joke) wich uses a third lever forthe intake valve i think ;)

Thanks!

So, basically, VTEC is a two stage profile switch. It doesn’t change timing continously. With timing gears on the end of the camshafts you can change the timing for the camshaft for about 25°, that is 50° if you see it related to the crankshaft. I combine this with a new way to change the valve lift. The advantage is a good mix of both power and efficiency.

So while VTEC just changes lift and profile between 2 modes, i-VTEC does the same as VTEC but with timing change. And my engine combines timing change with continously variable valve lift :)

Why a V6 though? It’s not inherently balanced.

The V6 design allows the engine to run very smooth (firing interval) while consuming not so much space. There is a bit of vibration in the engine but when it’s balanced well, the vibrations are not soo big and the engine almost runs as smooth as a inline-6. Also, I like the V6 sound. And I think that a V6 with Turbo and high rpm will sound very good :)

Hey Glenn,

i dont understand everything, im honest i understand nothing. But is looks very cool. Dont stop this Project. I dont know anyone in your age who says “fck that im building my own engine”.

You have my respect!

Thanks for such a compliment! :)

Nice work, I think that the fact of design the engine with that detail is a success.
How do you do the mats for the engine?

It’s actually not as compilcated as you might think. At first I think about whished power and design. For me that was: 300-400hp and V6. Then you think about going more to torqey design or high rev. I chose high torque and mid-high rev. So I wanted about 2 bar pressure and I want 24-25m/s mid piston speed. So I figuered out with this data that I needed about 1200cm³. To get the sizes for the engine, I calculated the piston stroek at an middle engine speed of 25m/s with 11000rpm. I got about 64mm. I knew there’s 200cm³ per cylinder so I just hat to calculate to bore out of volume and stroke.

That’s for example how I got the basic specs for the Cylinder. There are many other calculations like this but many things I do is based on the values I get from the Simulations I do.

Hope I could help :)