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Engine layouts

This video is to teach about engine layouts.

Now you may have heard that your vehicle has a V6 or an I4 or a flat 6 or a V8 and you may not know what that means, so here is how it works.

Now the first letter the I4, V6 is going to be the layout. That means that your cylinders are in a certain shape. With the in-line 6 they are going to be in line. There is going to be six cylinders in a row all connected to the same crankshaft, which will be powering your vehicle. An in-line 4 same thing, only that it has four cylinders.

Now in a V6 or a V8 or even a V4 your cylinders are arranged in a V shape, as you can see here, connected to the same crankshaft. All six or eight cylinders will be connected with pistons to the same crankshaft. Now these pistons, connected to pushrods, will rotate the crankshaft and this is the manner in which they are laid out. So a V6 has a V design with six cylinders, a V8 has a V design with eight cylinders.

Now there are some other things that you may hear about such as a flat 4 or a W engine. Now a flat 4 or a boxer engine as some companies may call it. What happens is the you will have the pistons laying flat the cylinders are all flat, like say my two arms here, and there will be two pistons, two cylinders here and two cylinders and these are all connected to this similar crankshaft. And they call it boxer because the pistons are kind of going like this on a flat manner, so it is called a flat 4.

Now a W12 is basically two V6's mated together to a single crankshaft, as you can see in the picture. So it is going to have 12 cylinders in a W shape, kind of, it is basically just for the um two V6's and they will be connected together and rotating a single crankshaft.

Now what are advantages of each of these? So some things may use in-lines and some things use flats why would you want one of the other? Well, for example, if you are using something like a flat 4 your cylinders are laying low, and so you can place this low to the ground and keep the overall weight of your vehicle towards the ground, keep your centre of gravity towards the ground and it will be more sport orientated. For cornering you will have a better centre of gravity position.

For V6's, V8's and W12's it maybe about where you are positioning it. Say you have got a car like this, and here is the front of your automobile, and they want to put the engine right here. Well, if it is an in-line it may be too long, so they will put it in a V shape, and they can fit it all in this spot right here and keep the weight evenly distributed on your car. So you will have say 50% in the back and 50% in the front that is ideal. And those are engine layouts and what they mean.

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