Best engines of all time

[FoMoJo]

The best engine of all time that has excelled in every possible use is the Chevy small block.

Sports cars, muscle cars, trucks, luxury cars, kit cars, racing cars, ski boats, racing boats, and whatever else it's ever been in.

The Chevy small-block is an iconic engine in many ways.  It was the hot-rodders choice as soon as it first appeared as well as a strong contender on the race track. 

However, the Windsor small-block has some pretty impressive creds as well.  Certainly, we all know about the legendary Cobras and, although it took a 427 big-block to get the job done at Le Mans, the small-block played an important role before and after that most inspirational event.  What may not be as well-known is the Ford Indy V8 based on the small-block Windsor; back when the 500 really meant something.  It ruled during the golden era of motorsport.  Not only that, it was one of the most impressive looking engines ever slung on the back of an open-wheeled racer, imo.

[Nethead]

This is why I discouted it, as well as any other pure racing engine from my selection of bests. The engines I did select have been dominant in many areas of motorsport, as well as so many other areas. You can have something that is the very best in a very limited focus, but that doesn't make it best overall. Kind of like asking what's the best car. A car that won LeMans a couple times (like, say, the Porsche 956/962) would make a great case as the best at that particular thing, but still be a pretty horrible car ovarall at the job of being a car. And the Ford F350 might be a king at towing and work truck versatility, but suck for comfort and racing.

So when I picked the best automotive engines, I chose engines that have been very successful in an absolutely staggering array of uses, from reliable street drivers ina n amazingly wide range of vehicles, off road ability, racing use (drag racing, circle track, AND road racing, production based cars to formula cars and sprint cars), as well as industrial, marine, and aircraft use. And they've been that outstanding and versatile for decades. Aside from the air cooled VW and small block Chevy, no engines can really claim that, though a few have come close (like the small block Ford)

ChrisV:  All valid and worthy points, ChrisDude, but here are PayDude's original specs:

"Give one example of what you consider one of the best engines ever, and a little blurb as to why."

And so my recommendation of the Cosworth-Ford 3.0L DFV V8 still stands--who knows what other racing venues besides Formula 1 and Indy cars it would have utterly dominated if it had been tried in those venues?  The outright win in the 1975 24 Hours of LeMans shows that there was tremendous potential for those willing to go with it.  It's ONLY "shortcoming" was its lack of displacement, else it might have taken over Top Fuel dragracing !  And locomotives, supertankers, yada yada yada

Seriously, the specs say "one"--without any "street version" or "under $10,000" or other caveats that would preclude the DFV from consideration.  It was the greatest gasoline piston engine up to that time, and I can't definitively point out a truly better gasoline piston engine today (although expect this comment to bring out the usual suspects screamin' LS9, just as they would have screamed L88 back in the day).  There are two contender engines:  (A) The turbocharged Ford Indy DOHC V8 (and I see that FoMoJo posted a pic of the pre-turbocharged version while I was composing this posting!)--hugely successful and still radical with its intake ports between the cams and the exhausts exiting into the "V" so that tuned headers could dump into dual turbos just aft of the heads and (B) the turbocharged Porsche 5.0L flat twelve that dominated the Can Am roadracing series so totally that the series disbanded since nothing could touch it and nothing was on the drawing boards anywhere in the world that could touch it (we're talkin' piston engines here--the helicopter turboshafts that powered Andy Granatelli's '67 and '68 Indy cars puts all piston engines to shame as well as all rotary engines).

[ChrisV]

I'm pretty sure the starter motor is down in the V between the cylinder banks too, thus requiring the intake manifold to be removed to replace the starter.

Bonehead design move there.

Same on the Lexus/Toyota V8s.