Will a V8 Run on Only 2 Cylinders We Tried It on This LS Engine

How strong is an LS engine? Can it run on just two cylinders? That's what we're gonna talk about in this video.

Don't try this at home. We are trained professionals. This happens to be a 5.3-liter V8 engine. This s a very common engine in most GM production vehicles, and a lot of people take these engines out and swap them into other vehicles.

So why would you ever want your engine to only run on two cylinders? Well, you wouldn't. But it would be nice to know that if you lost more than half of the cylinders on the engine, that you'd still be able to get to the side of the road.

Here's a quick explanation of what a cylinder is. Now, you have housings in your engine with pistons in them. And with the piston up, you have a injector, and also a spark plug, and you have some valves. As the piston goes down, it sucks in air and fuel, and then it compresses it. And when it compresses it, then the spark plug ignites, pushing the piston down. This engine has eight cylinders, and more modern versions of it actually shut down four of the cylinders while you're driving to help save fuel.

So, to disable the cylinders, I'm actually gonna have to disconnect the connectors. Now, if we disconnect the coil, which will eliminate the spark, you're still gonna have fuel entering the cylinder, and then going into the exhaust. You could potentially cause damage to the catalytic converter because the fuel is going into the exhaust. And then, it's gonna heat up, and it's not gonna be good. So what we're gonna do is disconnect the connector on the fuel rail. It's gonna cut the fuel from going into the cylinder so it's not gonna fire. There's still going to be a spark, and it's just a wasted spark, but it's not gonna cause any other damage.

So, I'm gonna disconnect three first. There we go. Three is disconnected. Try seven. Seven's disconnected. The engine's running a little rough, but it's still pretty smooth for having two misfires. So, I'll disconnect number two now. Number two's disconnected. And actually, it seems like it smoothed out a little bit with two disconnected. I'll disconnect number eight next, way in the back. Eight's disconnected. So, it's really not running that great. Now, we'll disconnect four. There we go. Oh, barely running. It's still running though. It's running on three cylinders. All right. Moment of truth. This is the last one. It is still running. It's only got two cylinders running. Doesn't sound great, but it is running.

So, we got it to run on two cylinders. It did die once I started to accelerate the throttle a little bit. So, I'm gonna try and start it up again on just two cylinders. There we go. It starts. It's not smooth at all. Let's see if I can move it a little bit. There we go. It's moving. Not very good.

So, that was pretty cool. The only cylinders we had working were cylinders one which is on this side, and cylinder five, which they're not even opposite cylinders. As far as the firing order goes, the better cylinders would've been one and six on the opposite side of the engine. The reason why you would've had pistons on each side of the engine, and you'd also have three misfires in between each cylinder that actually fired. Rather than what we had when we had cylinder one fire. Then, we had four misfires in between. Then cylinder five would fire. And then, there'd be two misfires. So, it not gonna be balanced. It's not as smooth, and that's what we were trying to do.

So, that was kinda fun. Now, you know you can run on two cylinders in an LS engine. If you enjoyed this content, make sure you subscribe to our channel, ring that bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.