in the history of internal combustion mankind has tried virtually every configuration possible..from whopping 16liter Fiat Airplane motors in the 20's to 1.5liter turbo charged Formula 1 cars that do 200mph and more recently the introduction of the W configuration, basically a V within a V yes 4 planes acting on ONE crank....
Generally speaking if the BORE of the Cylinder..say 4" in diametor is equal to distance between TDC and BDC or stroke..it's called a "square" engine...if the BORE is Greater than the Stroke it's called Over Square, ..most cars these days are UNDER square..small bore longer stroke..this means more torque and less RPMs (generally speaking)...natrually there's an exception to every rule.......
Weight is probably the biggest factor or contributing variable in terms of determining if a car is "fast". Everything else being equal, weight is basically the deciding factor between a winning and losing Makina..
"machine" or "car" in English >side note "machina, pronounced Makina, means CAR in italian" and speaking of italians, The italian government taxes the cars on stroke so they keep the strokes short, and bores bigger thus...the result is a relatively LOW torque engine, oversquare, that loves to rev out, couple that with a proper tranny and you've got a recipe for an exiciting driving experience...this is the secret to the Alfa Romeo's and Ferrari's of the 50, 60's 70's, well to current..Germans love torque..they love straight 4s or 6's with a health stroke and smaller bore...they give up some high end revs for pouncing on competitors with the musclular torquey engines and like the italians make up for their short coming with gearing...BMW/Mercedes are famous for their low reving hi torque muscle cars....Audi is the only car out of Germany that I'm aware of that prefers the high reving smaller engines, a la GTI, A4, S4, RS4 etc...Porsche with their flat 4 and dry sump is even more exotic as they've figure out how to overcome gravity...
to be Continued
No comments:
Post a Comment