ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) technologies

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
6,281
I don't think the future of gas ICEs will be significantly affected just by making the engine shorter for a given displacement and cylinder count. :rolleyes:
Oh, come on! Imagine how many Yugos could be sold if only they had a Ferrari engine!

 
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WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,840
While it's not hard to imagine applications where a shorter engine of the same displacement and cylinder count would be an advantage, I don't see how such applications are so critical as to let something like this rewrite the future of gas engines. I would imagine that the cost to produce such engines, and possibly reliability and maintenance concerns, would keep these limit to applications in which engine length was a non-negotiable constraint and the disadvantages would have to be accepted.

The problem of shortening an engine while maintaining displacement and cylinder count was much more effectively and elegantly addressed a century ago -- it was called the radial engine. It also had a very good power to weight ratio. None-the-less, it had disadvantages that resulted in it falling by the wayside once the need for large, powerful aircraft engines was supplanted by gas turbines.
 
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