kaiser frazer engines

[runninbear52]

who made the engines for the kaiser frazer cars. were they dodges? fords? chevys? 

[Kenn Evans II]

They are Kaiser.

[Fid]

Yes Kaiser was eventually the name but the 226 CID flathead 6 cyl was based on a Continental Engine (not to be confused with Lincoln cars). The Henry J used either a Willys 134 CID flathead four cylinder or a Willys 161 flathead 6 cylinder. The Kaiser Darrin sports car used a Willys 161 CID F-head engine. Hope this helps.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Before World War II, Continental Engines of Muskegon MI made the engines used in Graham automobiles; Graham-Paige worked with their engineers to update the prewar motor and the result was the 226 used in Kaiser and Frazer cars.  The Muskegon MI plant could not supply Kaiser-Frazer and Graham-Paige (the latter had the Frazer cars built during 1946 and the first weeks of 1947) with enough motors so Continental opened up a mothballed wartime engine plant in Detroit.  Kaiser-Frazer managed it, and in time took it over as the Detroit Engine Division (DED) of K-F.  Kaiser-Frazer also bought the manufacturing rights to the engine as they used it from Continental so it was a Kaiser-Frazer built engine.  Over the years of production the motor continued to be modified, ending up in 1954 as either an unsupercharged 118 bhp 6 or the supercharged 140 bhp 6 version. When K-F acquired the motor vehicle operations of Willys-Overland, the DED 226 in slightly different form (compared to what Kaiser cars used) started going into certain Jeep and Willys branded vehicles.  By the end of 1956, the Jeep complex at Toledo had its own engine plant for the 226 and the DED equipment went to IKA in Argentina where the 226 in unsupercharged form was used in the Kaiser Carabella passenger cars.

The 134.2 cu in flathead 4 and 161 cu in flathead 6 used in Henry J and Allstate models came from Willys-Overland (which became Willys Motors after the K-F acquisition in 1953) while the Kaiser-Darrin Sports cars used the Willys F-head 6 in unsupercharged form.

Continental Engines retained ownership of the 226 design as used in Checker automobiles and other industrial applications, but many of the internal parts (pistons, rings, etc) are interchangeable with the K-F built 226's.

[Roadmaster49]

I am a Peerless fan (Peerless made from 1901 to 1932) and Peerless in their last few years went to Continental engines. This started in 1927 and ended in 1931-32. They used many iterations of the Continental 6 cylinder and their high end cars from 28-31 were Continental Straight 8's.   

[HJ-ETEX]

How about this: my 1960 Studebaker T Cab truck has a Kaiser engine. Actually it is an a V6 & trany from a 1979 Buick, but this is a lead in to another part of the KF engine story. After 10 years, Willys Motors became Kaiser Jeep. Kaiser Jeep was stuck with some very old motors: the 226 L-head, the 134 L-head and F-head 4 cylinders and a OHC conversion of the 226. So Kaiser bought AMC V8s for options on the Wagoneers and Gladiator trucks and then GM sold them the tooling and manufacturing rights to the Buick V6. Kaiser used the V6 in some CJ5s and CJ6s and as an optional engine in the new C101/Commando/Jeepster.  As far as I can tell, the Kaiser made no changes to the V6 from the final Buick configuration. Kaiser was bought out by AMC who wanted to use their existing engines so the V6 tooling became unused. But then there was an Arab Oil Boycott and GM regretted selling the V6 . Ed Cole personally drove up to Kenosha and started negotiations on buying back the rights and tooling. The returned V6 was quite a hit for Buick division and it eventually ended up in some model in every GM US car division - even GMC truck and Cadillac.
At the KF National at Hoffman Estates (Chicago), a member had his red Commando judged (and it was nice one). It probably had a later Buick V6 in it since it had the late 70s GM electronic distributor. However, since the main external differences would be casting numbers on the block, heads and intake, it would be unfair to say more than this was an original V6 with an incorrect distributor.

[HJ-ETEX]

You may have heard of the aluminum 215 V8 that was developed for the new 1961 BOP compact cars. There were 2 versions: Buick and Olds/Pontiac. Buick was unhappy with their version. It was expensive to cast and expensive to assemble (pressed in cylinder sleeves) and ethylene glycol antifreeze corroded the block. Buick quickly developed a cast iron block V6 for 1962 that was based on the aluminum V8 design. For 1964 Buick developed a cast iron block/aluminum heads & intake V8 from the V6  and by 1968, this V8 was completely cast iron with 350 cubic inches and some some very aggressive hp.  Since this V8 was developed from the V6, it was close to being a straight  bolt-in replacement for the V6 in the Jeep Commando. It was also used in Kaiser Wagoneers & Gladiator trucks. But GM was moving into smaller cars and engines, so this Buick V8 was among the 1st to go when the engine line up was consolidated.