German influence?
No
Japanese and General Motors influence?
Perhaps
Mexican Built?
Yes
The articles I have read state that
the first influence on the 5.7 V8 was the whole post war series of Chrysler Hemi's
which were inspired by aircraft engine designs, particularly the 'upside down' V16 that Chrysler designed for the US Army-Air Force but that came a bit to late in 1945 to see actual production.
After the 426 V8 became a legend,
it in turn inspired
Japanese engine designers at Nissan to create the NAPS-Z cylinder head,
with semi-hemi canted valves,
higher swirl and tumble,
and twin spark plugs.
The Nissan designers were proud enough of these design tweaks to the Hemi head that they did a full write of it in the 1981 SAE Journal...
and, this is important ...
included 'real world' numbers on how clean it was from a pollution standpoint.
http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/810010When Bob Lutz was overseeing the V8s at Chrysler, a replacement was needed for the Magnum V8s, and several people wanted to go back to canted valve semi-hemi cylinder head design to get more flow.
The objection to Hemi cyl head then by some engineers was primarily:
"It will be way to dirty to ever pass EPA emissions even with today's catalytic converters."
The Hemi advocates pulled the old Nissan NAPS-Z paper out and showed how a modern Hemi head could be quite clean. This was the settlement of the key stumbling block.
Bob Lutz gave the go ahead for the new 5.7 Hemi, just a few months before the Germans gave him the 'Golden Parachute' and Chrysler lost his skills for no good reason.
I heard 'Maximum Bob' Lutz today on the early morning radio talking at the Detroit Auto Show, in typical
'Never Give Up'
spirit of an ex-Marine fighter pilot.
Tom Hoover and other retired Chrysler engineers were indeed asked for their thoughts and opinions on the new engine design.
Another key person that should not be forgotten is that factory cost control whiz Tom LaSorda had been lured away from GM, and LaSorda in turn helped recruit away from GM a couple of their best cylinder head designers, whose names escape me at the moment..
(Maybe brothers Ken Sperry/Ron Sperry, or Pat Baer ? Please post if you know the name of the guy)
but they were the 'cathedral roof' intake port designers.
They had unsuccessfully argued while working at GM that a 350 with Hemi heads would be superior, but got shot down each time. As part of the deal of moving to Chrysler, it was promised that the new V8 would be 350 cubic inches (5.7L) so that they could prove to ex-workmates at GM that his past ideas had been indeed right.
For Chrysler, the modern 5.7 Hemi was a financial success because it was so cheap to produce. Part of this was that the engine was assembled of 'modules' that were built by non-Chrysler parts suppliers, and of course the other factor was that the complete engine was assembled at the then-new Saltillo Engine Plant II in Mexico. Tom LaSorda had a lot to do with keeping these costs low.
My rough calculation is that from 2003 to 2006 the 5.7 Hemi low production costs added about 6$ Billion of 'free cash flow' to Chrysler's bottom line.
I doubt that Tom Hoover or any of the older Hemi designers saw any bonuses from this $, but they should have.
more reading
http://www.thehemi.com/news.php?id=20050824-1http://www.search-autoparts.com/searchautoparts/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=66741http://www.sae.org/automag/techbriefs/10-2002/http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2008/03/01/hmn_feature13.htmlhttp://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/engin...e_variants.htmlhttp://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Q77u...=clnk&gl=us
