Soviet V4 engines in choppers and national tuning features

Although the V4s of motorcycles are the most popular V-shaped fours in the custom culture, automobile V4s still exist and even sometimes occur in projects of interest to us. The most common of these engines will be, perhaps, Soviet engines found everywhere in the former CIS countries. And to explain how this happened, first of all, it is worth mentioning the following fact: in terms of car personalization, for a long time in the world, in principle, there was only one culture – American. The powerful U.S. auto industry tried to penetrate everywhere: for example, Ford assembled its cars in Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, and probably elsewhere in the 1950s. Thus, we can say that the Blue Oval was almost everywhere. And that’s just Ford.

Wherever there were American cars, fans of the brand inevitably appeared, as a result of which the custom culture penetrated there. If in doubt, just take a look at the abundance of magazines. Swedish Wheels and Start & Speed, British Street Machine, German Chrom Und Flammen – and I just named a couple of popular ones. We don’t have enough space on the server to list them all; there are still dozens of them in Australia alone, because Australia has always been America 2.0 in terms of customizations. And do you know what’s in the magazines? Advertisement. Tons of ads showing spare parts, garages, used cars – in general, absolutely everything you need to build your own custom car. And with the construction of each new custom, respectively, it becomes one more representative of the culture.

There were, of course, small local canons of car personalization, but they cannot be called at least some sane alternative to the American one. Unless, of course, you’re suddenly a fan of Pakistani or Indian jingle trucks, but I’ve never met a gentleman with such refined tastes. In short, for many decades, most of the people in the world who personalize their cars have followed the traditions and trends of the American school in one way or another. Only Japan was able to break this trend with its tuners – and that happened relatively recently.

Historical background

The Soviet Union was one of the countries where even a local culture did not exist, except for the occasional craze for a certain detail, such as braided braids on the steering wheel or gearshift knobs with a rose. But it looked more like some kind of epidemic than the cultural trend of car personalization. There were, of course, isolated projects – sometimes even interesting and famous ones, such as Pangolins – but still no definite trend appeared.

This hat occurred mainly because of the centrally planned economy. Well, that is, a planned economy, and a dozen other factors, of course. Under capitalism, everything is also far from clear. Yes, Chevy and Dodge are naturally fighting among themselves for the buyer, and they have to really monitor the number of sales, adapt their models and respond to the realities of the market. However, if in the 60s this led to Dodge Chargers, huge powerful engines and partnerships with people like Carroll Shelby or Don Yenko, then nowadays, as a result of capitalism, we are about to lose the last oil car, since the electric parody of the Mustang sells twice as well as the real V8.

In general, I personally believe that even with a planned economy, the fate of the automotive industry in the USSR could well have turned out completely differently if at least one of those planning for a couple of five-year plans had been distracted from producing a fresh hundred loaves of bread and transferred the released funds to the automotive industry – for example, to produce the Polish prototype FSO Syrena. Sport, even in a small series for export. Who knows what the butterfly effect might be. However, nothing like this happened – exhibitions were held and interesting concept cars were made, but the people did not get anything sensible in terms of cars.

The realities of the post-Soviet space

Custom culture came to us only after communism went down the drain, and the situation at that time was – and still is – lousy, to put it mildly. We didn’t actually have any engines. No, of course, de iure we produced large and powerful V8s. But they were exclusively installed in cars of those in power, and the batches of these engines were miniature. Motorcycles are even worse: the V-Twin was only installed in the pre-war PMZ-A-750, which was produced from 1934 to 39. Like the Japanese Rikou, even by the 90s the A-750 was more of a museum rarity than a project for a custom bike. But after the war, Japan entered into an economic miracle and developed a two-cylinder engine anew, and we entered… to some other place.

Things are also bad with the chassis: there are very few suitable ones, and most of them, again, are rarities rather than mass-produced models. GAZ 24 is almost the only really suitable option. At the same time, it’s worth mentioning something that we usually avoid in our articles: local laws. The government hasn’t helped a damn thing for motorists, and it’s not helping a damn thing. Following Russian laws, absolutely any change to the factory design must be registered and coordinated with those in power, including the replacement of seats with non-native ones and the installation of disc brakes. By the way, the replacement of the motor is strictly legally obliged to be carried out exclusively and only in workshops that have the appropriate license, and from time to time there is news that the replacement of the motor is going to be legally prohibited. In general, as the vice-president of the National Automobile Union, Jan Heitser, said in 2024:

“Unfortunately, almost all of our car tuning today is driven into some extremely rigid and not entirely justified framework.And the situation, apparently, is only getting worse.”

And finally, the last but not least nuance: economics. Even in the best period, to afford not so much the purchase, but the maintenance of a car with a large and voracious American-style engine is a concrete test of one’s own financial capabilities. Also, spare parts, in fact, are not available.

Let’s assume, however, that we still really want an American-style car with a V-shaped engine. We are ready to invest kilotons of money, we are ready to butt heads with the laws and defend our rights, we are ready to look for suitable details. What are the real and cheapest options we have?

Option 1: purchase a Japanese cruise ship.

Without a doubt, the simplest option. Get yourself a Japanese bike and enjoy life. If buying a whole motorcycle seems expensive, you can try to cram a Japanese engine into the frame, say, from IZH. They say that she’s still a little small, but some talented cats seem to be able to pull off such a trick.

Option 2: search for the 24th Volga and the engine from the truck or bus

While we didn’t have V-shaped passenger engines anyway, V6 and V8 appeared from time to time in purely working cars. Sometimes you can also find superchargers there – there is a chance to assemble a complete set of hot rodders. In addition, GAZ 24 existed in a huge number of varieties, which makes registration of changes much easier. Want to slap a V8 into it? Great, because the factory produced the 24-24 model, so there shouldn’t be any problems with the V8 up to 280 horsepower. Do you want to cut off the roof? It’s great, because there was a ceremonial 24-cabriolet. So what if there are only 50 pieces. The main thing is that the factory produced.

Choppers with V4 of the local breed

Option 3: build your own bike around the V4 from Zaporozhets!

Yes, comrades, MEMZ engines with a volume of 0.7 to 1.2 liters, producing 23 horsepower at worst, and a beast-like 50 at best. They can hardly be called car engines, but in a motorcycle? That’s it! And such units even drive quite briskly!

The engines were produced in the hundreds of thousands, and therefore they are cheap, and it is easy to find spare parts for them. The crankcase of the engines is made not of aluminum, but of magnesium alloy – it can not be easier. The entire structure is designed for air cooling, which somewhat reduces the amount of work. They have the canonical look of a classic V-shaped engine, revered and respected by all. And finally, the stars came together somewhere: the MEMZ four is surprisingly easy to connect to a transmission from Dnipro.

So absolutely all fans of the American style in the post-Soviet space know about this engine, and it is not difficult to find choppers, cruisers and trikes with engines from Zaporozhets in Bulgaria, Belarus, Poland and so on. These projects even sometimes make their way onto YouTube, where they naturally arouse the well-deserved admiration of the custom scene.

And if suddenly the video captures the construction process, then most likely at the same time the horror at the sight of the conditions in which the creators of motorcycles work. The excitement of a bike in this case always goes hand in hand with the excitement of “citizens’ ability to adapt” and “do almost anything without the resources that we Americans take for granted.”

In general, all this leads us to another advantage, in case you want to build your own bike: we really have a base for such projects. A sufficient number of people have collected something like this, and they can tell you about the nuances, help with advice, or even warn you about difficulties before they appear. And the engine itself is in use: people try different pistons, different carburetors on the MeMZa – well, there’s even at least one inflated engine.:

Summing up, we can safely say that due to a combination of circumstances, the engines of the Melitopol engine plant are undoubtedly the most popular V4 automotive engines in the global custom culture. It is worth maintaining this trend and building even more ZAZocycles.

In the future, we have, in fact, only three options. First, there will be fewer and fewer customizations, and the whole movement will simply bend. Secondly, there will be more customizations, and the government will realize that it is possible to make even more money on this, introduce even more various checks, after which the culture will collapse. And finally, the third one: there will be so many customizations that there will finally be reputable automotive parts companies that will already have enough capital and influence to defend the interests of the culture that brings them profit. Of course, we all hope for option number three, but even with the first two options, it is definitely worth building as many cars as possible here and now, while there is such an opportunity.