This is an original Type 587/1 Porsche Fuhrmann four-cam engine that was rebuilt by Jeff Adams at Speedsport Tuning of Danbury, Connecticut between 2020 and 2021.
The Fuhrmann four-cam engine was advanced for its time, with double overhead camshafts per bank, dual spark plugs per cylinder, and racing examples were capable of producing ~100 bhp per liter – an astonishing figure for the time.
Above Video: This 25 minute video from the Porsche Club of America offers a deep dive into the history of the Fuhrmann four-cam engine as well as its engineering and racing/production history.
History Speedrun: The Fuhrmann Four-Cam Engine
The program to develop the Porsche Type 547 engine, often called the Fuhrmann four-cam engine after its designer Ernst Fuhrmann, was one of the most ambitious projects to come out of Stuttgart in the 1950s.
The engine was designed to give Porsche’s lightweight sports cars (like the 550 Spyder and 356) the power to compete against larger and more established rivals. The engine was a compact 1.5 liter, air-cooled flat-four that set new standards in engineering complexity for the era.
With dual overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, driven by vertical shafts and bevel gears, and twin ignition, the engine contained many hundreds of individual components and it produced over 100 bhp in its earliest competition form – nearly double the output of the production pushrod flat-four.
First installed in the Porsche 550 Spyder in 1953, the 547 proved itself quickly in international competition. The car won its class at the Nürburgring Eifelrennen, then took a famous victory at the 1954 Carrera Panamericana – an achievement that led Porsche to adopt the “Carrera” name for its high-performance road cars.
Through the late 1950s and 1960s the displacement was expanded out to 1.6 liters and output beyond 135 bhp, powering models like the 718 RSK and 904 GTS to additional endurance racing successes, including multiple Targa Florio wins.
The Type 547 was notoriously difficult to build and maintain, it took a skilled mechanic 120 hours to assemble a single engine – timing could take 12-15 hours alone. Original surviving Type 547 Carrera engines can now sell for over $200,000 USD alone – considerably more if they’re still fitted to their original car.
The Porsche Fuhrmann Four-Cam Engine Shown Here
The engine you see here is a Type 587/1 Porsche Fuhrmann four-cam engine with a displacement of 2.0 liters (1,966cc), and it’s said to have been originally fitted to a 1962 Porsche 356B Carrera 2.
It was rebuilt between 2020 and 2021 by Jeff Adams at Speedsport Tuning (SST) of Danbury, Connecticut. This rebuild included a valve job, installing Calico-coated main and connecting rod bearings, and overhauling the twin Solex 40 PII-4 carburetors and oil pump.
The engine you see here is a Type 587/1 Porsche Fuhrmann four-cam engine with a displacement of 2.0 liters (1,966cc), and it’s said to have been originally fitted to a 1962 Porsche 356B Carrera 2.
After the rebuild the engine was test run to ensure it was working well, but it hasn’t yet been fitted to a car post-rebuild. When new, this engine was capable of 130 bhp, and racing versions won the Targa Florio multiple times, and took a slew of class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
It’s now being offered for sale from the Speedsport Tuning shop on behalf of the owner with a bill of sale. If you’d like to read more or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
