That is an interesting placement of the spark plugs and along with the other details it would be a nice conversation piece if you can get it for the right price. Looks complete too. Ferro was the designer/builder and they sold engines to Scripps-Booth, Briscoe and others.
Looks like the rocker arms pivot in ball stands mounted to inside top of rocker covers; must set lash at lifters..Never seen that before..Yes it would be a cool display...
If the price was right on the Briscoe V 8 I would buy it. Briscoe Motor Cars were made in Jackson Michigan and most were 4 cylinders of various horsepowers. I believe the only year for the V8 was 1916 (35 hp). I have run across a few pictures of a Briscoe racing car that is of the 1916 vintage. Not sure of the engine it started life with but it may have been the V8 (strictly wishful hoping I guess). It later was later fitted with a Duesenberg. Louis Lecocq who drove the Briscoe race car had earlier worked for Duesenberg. I found a couple of pictures of it in the Ben Gotoff scrapbook (aka Ben Geroix-?sp). Ben was a second tier racer and raced at many local tracks to limited success. Here are a few pics.
V8 Oakland. Oakland was purchased by GM and used in 1932 Pontiacs before being dropped for a straight '8'. Note the stepped block where heads attach and the vertical valve seats and shape of heads.
Originally conceived for hydroplane racing, Tommy Thickstun of Los Angeles developed splash covers to bolt onto Ford flatheads. Two benefits: besides preventing spark plugs from shorting out, they also suggested the familiar high performance appearance of Ardun-style cylinder heads.
What would make it even more rare would be one of the aluminum heads made for the little 4-banger from Willys...had a picture of one, but can't seem to find it in my mess...anybody got a picture of the aluminum head ?? g-willys
The guy selling it did mention 1916 and around 35-40hp. I guess the motor was in a building for over 30 years that he knew of, the building started falling apart and he moved it to a different building and decided to sell it. I like odd stuff like that, if it wasn't to locked up it would be a great motor to try and rebuild. I was on another forum and i guess you can still get some NOS parts and gaskets. It sounded like those motors had a lot of torque. The one guy said he had his Briscoe up to 92 mph! would like to build like a speedster or Trog type car some day, that motor would stand out and be fun!
My grandfather had a Briscoe but to be honest I am not overly familiar with them. I am a fan of racing during the teens and it would be cool to see a race car with this engine. If someone had a Briscoe up to 92 mph, he had to have a pretty good size of stones IMO. I have driven fast cars from the era and been a passenger in a few cars from the era at 75 mph to maybe 8o some ish and believe me it gets your attention (including on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the 100 year anniversary). The racers and their mechanics from the era that ran in excess of 100 mph had some real balls for sure. Hope you are able to score it at a decent price.
T. Noah "Tiny" Smith of San Antonio noted that Ford V8-60 engines tended to overheat, so he designed a conversion which relocated exhaust valves into the cylinder heads. (Intake valves remained in their stock location, in the cylinder block.) Smith "Jiggler" air cooled cylinder heads looked cool, but they neither cured the cooling problem nor enhanced power production. Introduced in 1937 and only offered in the U.S. through 1940, Ford called this scaled-down 136cid flathead V8 the "Sixty" because in factory trim it produced just sixty horsepower. Performance wasn't a priority in its design. Tax laws were. European countries and Britain taxed displacement and bore size respectively.
Chevrolet. It features detachable crossflow cylinder heads with overhead valves operated by a single centrally located camshaft plus a counterweighted crankshaft. 288cid via a bore of 3.36" and a stroke of 4.00". Chevrolet advertised that this engine produced 55 horsepower... in 1918 George Riley of Los Angeles produced this 221cid SOHC V8 engine in 1926. It was rated 175hp.
It looks like there are a lot of similarities between this engine and the Ferro/Scripps-Booth/Briscoe. I wonder if Chevrolet’s engineers sourced a Ferro engine, copied the design and made a few changes?
That is the best shot of that I have seen. I posted more about it here awhile back :https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-novi-v-8-what-was-it.1062420/
1923 Packard Gold Cup engine 1 of only 6 made. 4 are in running order (1- Rainbow III; 2- Ventnor Juno; 3- Scotty II; 4- Baby Skipalong) Unknown
JHansen............thats right, ruin my day by showing a pic with three Porsche 917 engines..........lol........thanks, andyd
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