The Engine So Big It Needed Three Crankshafts

Open the hood of a mining haul truck and you find something that shouldn't exist: not one engine, but three cast-iron blocks bolted end to end, with three separate crankshafts turning as one. Six turbochargers. Twenty cylinders. Nearly 49 litres. Five tons of iron. This is the Detroit Diesel 20V-149, the biggest two-stroke diesel Detroit ever built — and the reason it exists has almost nothing to do with power. Detroit already had a 16-cylinder engine that could do the job. They built this instead, on purpose, and the reason is the most Detroit answer imaginable. ▶ WATCH NEXT: The Engine So Loud America Banned It:    • The Engine So Loud America Banned It   The Engine So Iconic No One Could Forget Its Sound:    • The Engine So Iconic No One Could Forget I...   ⏱ CHAPTERS: 00:00 Three engines bolted together 01:26 Why a Detroit two-stroke screams 03:23 The engine that could kill itself 04:50 Potheads, airboxes and bolted blocks 06:52 Why twenty cylinders instead of sixteen 08:55 Three hundred tons, and a submarine's trick 10:38 How the two-stroke era ended 11:54 Still out there, waiting ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔊 MORE FROM THE LOUD ERA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🚛 DIESELS & THE ROAD The Engine So Loud America Banned It:    • The Engine So Loud America Banned It   The Engine So Iconic No One Could Forget Its Sound:    • The Engine So Iconic No One Could Forget I...   The Engine So Efficient It Drove 3,000 Miles for $1:    • The Engine So Efficient It Drove 3,000 Mil...   The Diesel That Killed a Century of Steam:    • The Diesel That Killed a Century of Steam   The Engine So Toxic It Was Suddenly Made Illegal:    • The Engine So Toxic It Was Suddenly Made I...   The Brake So Loud It Was Outlawed by Towns:    • The Brake So Loud It Was Outlawed by Towns   ⚓ NAVY & WAR MACHINES The Engine So Good the Navy Never Stopped Building It:    • The Engine So Good the Navy Never Stopped ...   The Engine So Loud the Navy Had to Hide It:    • The Engine So Loud the Navy Had to Hide It   The Boat Engine That Won World War II:    • The Boat Engine That Won World War II   The Engine So Powerful They Put Three in a PT Boat:    • The Engine So Powerful They Put Three in a...   The Engine So Unusual No One Believed It Worked:    • The Engine So Unusual No One Believed It W...   ✈️ WWII AIRCRAFT ENGINES The Engine So Reliable Rolls-Royce Had to Copy It:    • The Engine So Reliable Rolls-Royce Had to ...   The Engine So Durable It Survived Direct Hits:    • The Engine So Durable It Survived Direct Hits   The Bomber That Needed Ten Engines to Fly:    • The Bomber That Needed Ten Engines to Fly   The Engine That Nearly Lost the WWII:    • The Engine That Nearly Lost the WWII   The Engine That Made US Air Force Untouchable:    • The Engine That Made US Air Force Untouchable   The Engine So Loud the American Air Force Banned It:    • The Engine So Loud the American Air Force ...   🔔 New engine stories every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Subscribe and turn it up:    / @theloudera   Some visuals in this video are AI-generated illustrations, created to depict machinery and events for which no clear footage exists. All narration is based on documented, verified history. #detroitdiesel #twostroke #screamingjimmy #dieselengine #miningtrucks #v20 #enginehistory #haultruck #detroit #dieselpower