This 20-Cylinder Engine Is Two Tiny V-10s Geared Together

In an English shed (where else?) some engineers are creating wild engines.

For as much experimentation as there is in the world of the modern internal-combustion engine, people don't really mess with cylinder configurations. The last revolutionary layout is the W, pioneered by the Volkswagen group, where essentially two VR engines (also developed by VW) share a common crank and block. But, a small prototyping company in the U.K., Bevan Davidson International, is experimenting, and its engineers have come up with something truly wild, an X-20. This extraordinary video from Drivetribe shows us what this wacky engine is all about.

The X-20 is derived from a V-10 developed for a stillborn English sports car, the Connaught Type-D GT. Unlike all other automotive V-10s, which have two banks of cylinders with a head for each, this V-10 has an ultra-narrow 22.5-degree V-angle, which allows for one cylinder head. Think of it as a Volkswagen-style VR-6, with four extra cylinders. You could reasonably call this V-10 a VR-10, in fact.

For the X-20, BDI essentially combined two fully separate V-10s—each with its own crankshaft—and geared them together. The original V-10 only displaces 2.0 liters and makes a little over 200 hp, so the X-20 displaces just 4.0 liters and makes over 400 hp. It has an exhaust for all 20 cylinders, but interestingly, two-valve heads. One imagines it'd be difficult to make 80 tiny valves and time them. BDI wants to put this engine in a supercar wearing the Connaught name—which it owns—and forced induction is even on the table, too.

Not many have experimented with gearing two automotive engines together. Off the top of my head, there was the BRM H-16, essentially two flat-eights stacked on top of each other and the Cizeta V-16, which was two V-8s sharing a block (though with a V-16 firing order), geared together to provide drive off the middle of the transversely mounted engine. Neither was particularly successful.

The X-20 isn't BDI's only project though. The firm is working on a V-6 based on its V-10, and there's talk of a V-4 and a V-5 and a V-12, too. Oh also, it built a fuel-injected three-cylinder two-stroke. "We have 18 projects, and we only need one or two to be successful, the others can be written off," CEO Phil Bevan says about the many wild things BDI is working on.

Bevan is hoping there's interest in the X-20 engine, and whatever supercar it ends up powering, but if not, he's happy that BDI built the thing in the first place. We just want to hear it fire up if nothing else.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
More From Videos