Crazy exhaust system for new Toyota V8.

Yamaha is best known for its motorcycle and marine engines, but it also has a sterling record of cooperation with Toyota.

Arguably the most significant V10 road-car engine of all time was the Lexus LFA’s 4.8-litre version. And enabling that engine’s performance and crankspeed, was a lot of Yamaha technology.

Toyota values Yamaha’s contribution and skill relating to intake systems and valve-gear, crucial components on high-revving motorcycle engines.

Toyota’s latest Yamaha-aided engineering project is a hydrogen version of the Lexus 5-litre V8 engine. Since the 1990s, several automotive companies have experimented with the potential of hydrogen, which offers much greater energy than petrol or diesel.

For Toyota, hydrogen is one of its pillars for a greener vehicle fleet in future.

To prove how some of Toyota’s current powertrain architectures could evolve into hydrogen engines, the Lexus 5-litre V8 has been converted to run on hydrogen.

Yamaha’s engineering team worked extensively on the injectors, cylinder heads, and intake manifold to accommodate the liquid fuel type change. No changes were made to the engine block.

And the results? Strikingly similar to running your Lexus 5-litre V8 vehicle on petrol.

The hydrogen engine delivers 335 kW at 6 800 rpm, supported by 540 Nm of torque. Those numbers are essentially what you’d have behind the wheel of a 2022 model year Lexus RC F Track Edition.

But what does it sound like? There is no exhaust note sample available – yet. But with a top-mounted 8-into-1 exhaust manifold, there is every probability of this hydrogen-fuelled V8 bellowing a very distinctive beat.

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