This is an original Oldsmobile Jetfire Turbo Rocket V8 engine, it was pulled out of a 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire, and it has the unique distinction of being the world’s first turbocharged V8 production engine.
The title of world’s first production turbo V8 would be historically significant enough, but the Jetfire Turbo Rocket was also just the second production engine with a turbo fitted after the Chevrolet Corvair Spyder Turbo which had been released a mere two weeks earlier
Here you see the Garrett T5 turbocharger mounted above the V in the engine. The system sent the intake charge through a single carburetor directly into the engine, it was very hot and as such it needed a water-methyl-alcohol blend injected into the intake to cool it down and avoid engine knock.
The Jetfire Turbo Rocket V8 was developed by Oldsmobile working together with Garrett AiResearch, a company that up until that time had largely been making turbos for larger industrial applications. The smaller-diameter Garrett T5 turbocharger with an integral wastegate was developed and used for the Oldsmobile, producing a relatively mild 5 PSI of boost.
The Oldsmobile 215 cubic inch V8 was based closely on the Buick 215 V8, an engine that would famously go on to become the Rover V8. It also formed the foundation of the Repco 3.0 liter V8 used by Brabham to win the 1966 and 1967 Formula One World Championships – though of course that engine was highly modified.
The turbocharged version of this engine was given a 10.25:1 compression ratio, an unusually high figure for a forced-induction engine. To avoid knock it was given a complex water-methyl-alcohol injection system that was called Turbo-Rocket Fluid.
The listing here on Bring a Trailer