And we complain about the Austin 7 Crankshaft !

[Hedd_Jones]

Scripps Booth made a 2 main bearing V8

Charles

I remember father telling me he cut up a Scripps Booth at Heywards scrapyard at Bersham in the early 1960's. Never heard of one again until you mentioned the name.

[Bob Culver]

It seems that Weigal joined two large 40 hp 4 cyl engines to form a racer. So presumably with the odd crank throws two cyls fired in unison. 40 hp at the time suggests 4.5 litres or more!

[AustinWood]

The pre-war Straight-8 26HP & 4-1/2 litre Daimlers had 9 main bearings. They also had an aluminium flywheel at the back and a heavy vibration damper at the front which I think would help the torsion. The postwar DE36 was 5.4 Litres and had 5 main bearings.
The DE36 did break occasionally crankshafts, always at the rear main journal.
All were fitted with fluid flywheel and pre-selector gearboxes.
The DE36 had prodigious low-speed torque and would easily start in top gear. I don't think that helped the crank.
There were also the 'Light Straight-8'. I've never heard of crank breakages for them.

[TonyHodson]

14 litres in fact! Weigal entered two cars in the GP of 1907, run at Dieppe. One retired on the first lap with tyre problems the second survived for nearly 400kms retiring on the sixth lap for reasons not specified in Matheison's GP Racing 1908-1914.
End of history lesson!!

Tony Hodson

[Chris Garner]

Rose's A Record of Motor Racing shows the Weigal, W1 driven by Laxen and starting 14th, retired on the third lap with an average speed of 36 mph, The second, W2 driven by Harrison and starting 26th, retired on the 5th lap with an average speed of 44 mph.  The winning F.I.A.T. driven by Nazzaro over the 477 miles, averaged 70.5 mph!