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A pushrod is basically a metal tube designed to transfer the reciprocating motion of a valve lifter, riding on the camshaft, to the valve. Pushrods are long, slender metal rods that are used in overhead valve engines to transfer motion from the camshaft (located in the engine block) to the valves (located in the cylinder head). The bottom end of a pushrod is fitted with a lifter, upon which the camshaft makes contact. The camshaft lobe moves the lifter upwards, which moves the pushrod. The top end of the lifter pushes on the rocker arm, which opens the valve.
When it comes to V8 performance, General Motors has stuck by the pushrod engine. The iconic small-block V8 engine lives on to this day and shows no signs of coming to an end in the near future. But, pushrods are pretty outdated compared to dual-overhead-camshaft setups. What’s so great about them?
Engineering Explained tackled five reasons why pushrod engines still exist, and their benefits check off a lot of boxes. The first is low-end torque. Pushrod engines have a habit of making lots of torque down low in the rpm range. It’s due to airflow and the fact pushrod engines normally use two valves per cylinder. This is also the reason pushrod engines don’t rev incredibly high.
The second is a relatively simple design. Unlike DOHC engines, pushrod engines are not complex in construction. In the engineering world, if a solution can be achieved with a simpler design, it just makes sense. Pushrod engines feature a single camshaft in close distance to the crankshaft, which means a belt, gear or chain doesn’t have to travel far to rotate the camshaft.
The simple design moves into the third and fourth advantages: size and weight. A pushrod engine’s overall packaging is much smaller and compact than a DOHC engine. Pushrod engines are also shorter, which allows engineers to place the engine further back in the engine bay to work on the center of gravity.
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