YES another question!!

[ivymike1031]

so you're just saying that a rotary engine goes in circles instead of back and forth? That's not very interesting, is it?

[FYRHWK1]

The differences in the way which they cycle due to one being circular (in reality it's not a circle, a rotary travels in an elliptical motion), however uninteresting as it may seem, is fairly important, unless of course the that kind of thing doesn't interest you, in which case i've got nothing left to say.

[ivymike1031]

The rotor center follows a circular path. The tips of the rotor follow the surface of the rotor housing, so their paths are epitrochoidal. What's so important about it? Circles aren't magical.

[Steel]

neither are blocks of metal moving up and down

[pod]

does anyone know of a large displacement rotery 3 leters and up?

[bullseye]

im lost! I AM SO LOST HERE!!

[454Casull]

Originally posted by ivymike1031
they're a 2 stroke cycle essentially (i know it has 4 stages but they dont require 4 different rotor movements

Um, so do they have "two different rotor movements?"

If you look at the chamber volume over the cycle, it sure looks a whole lot more like four stroke than a two stroke. (The chamber goes big-small-big-small over the cycle, not just big-small)

How are rotaries 2 stroke engines? A 2-stroke compresses on one stroke (in this case, the action of the rotor)and expands, exhausts and intakes in the second. A 4-stroke does each of those separately. The rotary is the latter.

[454Casull]

Originally posted by CAptynCrunch
A liter is the standard metric unit for volume. A liter is defined as the space occupied by 1 liter of pure water at 4 degrees Celcius, but thats not really important in this case. All you really need to know is how big it is and thats One(1) cubic decimeter.

Now a cubic decimeter isn't something most people can picture easily. A decimeter is ten centimeters so if you have a decimeter times a decimeter times a decimeter thats the same as 10 centimeters times 10 centimeters times 10 centimeters. 10 times 10 times 10 is 1000. So Thats 1000 cc'c(cubic centimeters) which is the same as a liter. Now if all of this is to jumbled to make sense of, just go buy a 1 liter bottle of pop at the store and thats what 1 liter is.

Now how does this apply to Cars? like slutty said when a car says it has a certain liter engine it's talking about how big it is or it's Displacement. If a car says it has a 1.6Liter 4 cylinder engine then this means in total it displaces 1.6Liters or 1600cc's. Now if you divide the total displacement by the number of cylinders you'll get the displacement of one cylinder. So 1600/4 = 400cc's, so one cylinder in a 1.6L four cylinder is 400cc's or just a bit bigger than a can of coke.

The way this really works in cars though is that the displacement is determined by the bore and stroke of the engine. However I was until the wee hours of the morning last night and I also just ran out of codine tablets for my throat which isn't healed like it should be so I'm gonna end this one here, I'll finish later.

<A liter is defined as the space occupied by 1 liter of pure water at 4 degrees Celcius, but thats not really important in this case.> You're right, that's not important because you're defining one liter as one liter?

The letter basically stands for teh alignment of the cylinders. Common ones are:
V - basically two rows of cylinders in a V shaped(at an angle), this angle can vary.. probably most common, V6, V8, V12, etc.
I - Inline, all are lined up(all 4 cylinders use this), some are I6(e.g, skyline engine rb26). I6 is not commonly used because it is heavy, takes up more space with V6, and it is harder to engineer..
W - Fairly new, I *think* only engine is the W16, which is like 1000hp stock..

I've never heard of the angles V6, V8 and V12. Do you have any links backing up your statement that inline engines are heavier than V or flat engines of the same displacement/head/block material? And I doubt that they are harder to engineer.

And as Hudson said, there are W8, W12, W16 and W18 engines, although the W18 design is pretty bad.

[Hudson]

Originally posted by 454Casull

I've never heard of the angles V6, V8 and V12. Do you have any links backing up your statement that inline engines are heavier than V or flat engines of the same displacement/head/block material? And I doubt that they are harder to engineer.

And as Hudson said, there are W8, W12, W16 and W18 engines, although the W18 design is pretty bad.

The problems with inline engines include length (a "Vee" engine is wider but shorter overall) and vibrations (the longer the crankshaft becomes, the more likely it is to flex).

In VW's "W" designs, the W8, W12, and W16 are basically two narrow "Vee" engines (V4, V6, and V8, respectively) joined on one crankshaft forming four banks of cylinders (2-2-2-2, 3-3-3-3, or 4-4-4-4). The W18 concept design was three banks of inline six-cylinder engines (actually, three banks of tandem three-cylinder engines), a 6-6-6 design.

So far, only the W8 and W12 are actually in production, but the W16 is due out with the new Bugatti.

I haven't found any one source for all "Vee" angles, but if there's an engine you want to know the angle of, post it. Some examples: VW VR6 is 15-degrees, most V8s are 90-degrees, Mercedes-Benz V6s are 90-degrees, GM's 2.8/3.1/3.4 V6 is 60-degree, GM's MV6 six-cylinder (used in the Cadillac Catera/CTS and Saturn L-Series as well as a few Opel and Vauxhall cars) is 54-degrees.

[Steel]

time to throw another monkey wrench in the gears; Dont forget boxer engines, who primarily Subaru and Porche use. I guess you can think of them as V engines, except the angle between the cylinders is 180 degrees! They sure as hell make balancinge a lot easier, and the center of gravity is a lot lower (generally) for those cars. But the engine is also pretty wide too. And the opposing cylinders arent on the same crank, they oppose each other..egh.. basically the cylinders come toward each other, then away from each other.