YES another question!!

ok i coudnit fid out what a liter is like car wise i hear ppls say like a V-6 bla blah liter engin well what is it?? sorry for the dum question!

There is no such thing as a dumb question. The term "liter" refers to the theoretical volume of air/fuel that all of an engines cylinders can intake in one full cycle (a cycle is characterised as four strokes, intake, compression, power, exhaust). It is really only the intake stroke that concerns this term though, as it is a measure of intake volume. I said theoretical because due to engine inefficiency, an engine may not be able to actually intake this volume of air. The reason we use this term is as a guide. GENERALLY, this is by no means a rule, the more liters (or "displacement") an engine has, the more power it can produce.

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.

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im sure ill git that soon but for now:confused: :cry:

What's so hard to understand? Liter is just a volume. A typical Soda bottle (coca cola, pepsi, etc...) is 2 Liters.

Cubic Centimeters is what it is...think of a box that can hold 1cm x 1cm x 1cm of water...that's a cubic centimeter right there.

1 cubic centimeter = 1 milliLiter
1000 cubic centimeter = 1 Liter

Think of it this way...an engine takes in a certain volume of air (air contains O2, CO2, etc...) in Liters. The fuel injection system balances mixture of air with fuel. The container holding that mixture of fuel and air is the cylinder (think of a cylinder shaped object, that's it).

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 think others might want to add to this, I'm really tired right now(haven't slept for at least 48 hours), and I can't think of much more..

then theres rotaries, which are nothing like piston engines, displace 1.3 liters (about the same as those suzuki swifts), but make plenty of power. Use a lotta gas though.

Originally posted by Steel
then theres rotaries, which are nothing like piston engines, displace 1.3 liters (about the same as those suzuki swifts), but make plenty of power. Use a lotta gas though.

Yeah I don't understand how they get the displacement of rotaries? The size of the triangle thingy?

we actually got to the bottom of that in a different thread:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t93398.html

While most of what has been said has been correct, it may be over the head of someone asking this sort of question. I'll try to rephrase.

First, a cylinder is the chamber in which the energy from a fuel is turned into the movement of the engine (in a piston engine, I'm avoiding the confusion of a rotary engine for the moment). The piston is the device that transfers this energy to the crankshaft, which, in turn, moves the transmission/axle/wheels.

Engine size is measured in volume. The measurement is the volume "displaced" by the moving cylinder/rotor. As a piston moves from its top position to its bottom position, it moves through a set volume. The cylinder (the area in which the piston moves) can actually hold MORE volume than the said displacement; when the piston is at the top of its travel (TDC or top dead center), there is a space above the piston which is not measured as part of the displacement of an engine.

Simply put, the displacement of an engine is the volume as measured by using the bore of the piston (the diameter of the piston) and its stroke (the range on which it moves) multiplied by the number of cylinders.

As for cylinder arrangement, there are basically two setups. An inline engine has all cylinders lined up. An "I4" (or "L4") engine, for example has four cylinders in a straight line. In smaller engines, this provides excellent packaging where the engine is narrow for placement in small cars. There are benefits to an engine's smoothness found in inline six cylinder engines (with negative points being engine length), but more than six cylinders in an inline engine causes additional stress on certain engine parts.

The other arrangement is a "V". The cylinders are divided into groups which are connected to the crankshaft at an angle. Most engines have two "banks" of cylinders and can be arranged from very narrow angles (15 degrees is currently the most narrow V engine) to a "flat" or "horizontally opposed" layout (180 degrees). There are some flat four cylinder engines, but angled engines are usually found with six or more cylinders. The V design allows for better packaging by reducing the overall length of the engine.

The "W" engine mentioned eariler is simply a V engine with four banks of cylinders. Volkswagen is the only company currently toying with the idea and they have a "W8" engine (two 15 degree V4s connected at a 72 degree angle) in production at the moment with W12 and W16 engines planned for the near future. Volkswagen also showed a concept W18 with three banks of six cylinders each, but it was just a concept.

I hope this helps.

for rotaries, its the maxumum swept area volume (650cc's) x no. of rotors (2) =1300cc's.

Though some people will disagree and want to multiply by 2, because theres 3 different sides on the rotor blah blah blah. I just stick with what the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) say, and they say 1.3 liters :)

or 2.0 for the 20b :D

or... 2.6 for the 4 rotor 26b racing engine!:eek: :eek: :eek: :twoguns:

rotaries are only 1.3L at rest :p dynamically they're a 2 stroke cycle essentially (i know it has 4 stages but they dont require 4 different rotor movements, one of their saving graces) so doubling their displacement is a good was of telling how they perform dynamically.

Also, 61.1 CID/liter, just in case that hasnt been posted.

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)

Originally posted by BeEfCaKe
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 think others might want to add to this, I'm really tired right now(haven't slept for at least 48 hours), and I can't think of much more..

Volkswagen makes a W12 for that concept i think, and the W-16 is also quad turbocharged, I'd like to know what it makes for power N/A. I think they tried makin a W-12 or sumthin like that, not sure but I'll bet there are more W engines out there, maybe not in cars though.

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)

perhaps my explanation was poor, but by no means do they look anything like a 4 stroke piston engine in terms of induction through exhaust cycles. 1 rotor face will draw air/fuel in, compress, combust it and then evacuate the exhaust gas in 1 sweep, much like a 2 stroke engine performs. A 4 stroke piston engine requires the piston to cross its swept area 4 times to do the same work, i didnt think that this was very hard to get :confused:

the "4 stages but dont require 4 different rotor movements" is exactly what i just re-explained above, nothing more, but i suppose the choice of words isnt the best.

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

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.

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.

neither are blocks of metal moving up and down ;)

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

im lost! I AM SO LOST HERE!! :eek:

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.

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.

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.

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.