[schwarze-man]

Hi Sidney,
Yes, I am looking at these engines with a calibrated eye that says, "same job-same man hours". I agree, that might not translate to a certain performance at a different manufacturer. The early UK RR Merlin production was very much a finished-by-hand operation. Serious mass production and skills dilution at RR took a lot of effort. The re-drawing and tolerance specification for Packard production was a major task. I guess that this was all part of the workload that led to mass production. The first Packard engines were 28's and incorporated a two-piece block, designed with RR compliance. Out of interest, the DB engines were finely finished until after about 1941 production, then finish quality visibly declined. Unseen, the materials quality also reduced but, overall engine performance did increase, with reservations. Very generally, German engine life reduced while Western allied engines reached higher lives at higher power. The reality was that high quality materials were in real short supply for Germany and Aviation Gasoline never really saw the octane improvement above 87 B4 that was the industry standard due to supply limitations. Cheers

SM