Quote:
Originally posted by jweicht
Well, kinda. Radial engines have odd number of cylinders, so no cylinders are actually 180 degrees out from each other. In the case of the engine shown it's a seven cylinder. All those pistons and con rods also share a common crankpin I believe. Someone correct me if I'm wrong - I've been a turbine engine guy my whole aviation career. Suck and blow, baby!
-EDIT- Actually, I just looked really close at the picture again - that's a stacked radial as you can see a second bank of cylinders behind the first. Some serious power coming out of that thing.
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yeah, i noticed the odd number and stacked cylinders in the pic. but was generalizing for the purpose of brevity. its those types of details that had to be tweaked to make it work for a moto-engine.
either way, while they are opposed cylinders they are offset front to rear for obvious clearance issues with the crank. hence you lop off all but the opposing cylinders and there you go.
you could probably write a small essay on the actual differences in the engines, but all that said, every engine came from the first combustion engine design...where you stuck things might have made it unique, i.e. OHV, OHC, DOHC, vtec, vanos, hemi, etc. etc...but they are, basically, the same thing.
repoe3