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by Astaroth on March 23rd, 2004
Directly, the more cylinders the more power. Let me explain:
As you probably now, in every internal combustion engine inside each cylinder there is a piston. Pistons move up-down-up (to move the whole system and finally the wheels) due to gasoline explosion, and they work in sequence. So a two cylinder engine will go 1-2-1 and so on. A four cylinder goes 1 and 3 - 2 and 4 - 1 and 3 and so on, thus in the same time double the power.
Performance-wise, when you accelerate, a more cylinders car will reach a certain speed faster. Besides, the more cylinders the more life-time an engine will have, because the pressure is shared. Of course, there are pros and cons, being the most known con your gasoline comsumption. Of course: the more cylinders the most explosions and finally the more gas.
An interesting fact is that cylinders can be "In-line" or "In-V". In line they work in a serial fashion, while in V they work in a parallel fashion. Now imagine a V12 engine (like a Ferrari Testarossa), 6 cylinders in front of another 6 cylinders, in repeated powerfull parallel sequences. This is why these cars can accelerate from 0-60 miles in just a few seconds.
Yet, you don't want to see the gas bill.
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Comments
This better addresses displacement, not # of pistons. e.g. a 7.5 liter V-8 could out-perform a 6.0 liter V-12.
by Thom64 on August 19th, 2004