Hard time starting with electric starter, easy with crank

[tubman]

Originally Posted by Als48

Dalton and Seth, I have hand-cranked a few four cylinder tractors/model A's etc. but never a V8 engine in my 77 plus years. But I've been told that a V8 is easier to crank start than a 4, considering that it has smaller pistons/cylinders to overcome the compression on. Four cylinders do usually have larger flywheels, tho. so that would be a little different, since one would be sort of depending on the flywheel effect to assist in the starting. You are quite the man, tho like Seth said.

Al Hook

This is correct. The more cylinders, the easier it is to start, because there are more cylinders firing on each crank "pull". I had a 1948 Seagrave pumper with the Pierce-Arrow sourced 468 ci V12 with dual ignitions. When I got it, only one ignition was functional. When I finally got it sorted out, it was very easy to crank start. I won a lot of bets that I could start it with one crank, and I was far from what you would call a "physical specimen", even back then.

I also had a 4 cylinder Yamaha snowmobile that was the easiest starting sled I ever had. With all of those cylinders and being a two cycle, I'll bet it fired 8 to 10 times for every pull of the recoil.