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Ford straight-4 engine with cylinder head removed
Ford straight-4 engine with cylinder head removed

The straight-4 or inline-4 engine (often abbreviated I4 or L4) is a four cylinder internal combustion engine with all four cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase. The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the Combustion of Fuel and an Oxidizer (typically air occurs in a confined space called a A cylinder is the central working part of a Reciprocating engine, the space in which a Piston travels For the GI Joe character see List of GI Joe ARAH characters. For the Transformers characters see Crankcase (Transformers. The single bank of cylinders may be oriented in either a vertical or an inclined plane with all the pistons driving a common crankshaft. A piston is a component of Reciprocating engines Pumps and Gas compressors It is located in a cylinder and is made gas-tight by Piston The crankshaft, sometimes casually abbreviated to crank, is the part of an Engine which translates reciprocating Linear Where it is inclined, it is sometimes called a slant-4. The straight-4 layout confers a degree of mechanical simplicity which makes it popular for economy cars. [1]

Contents

Displacement

This straight engine configuration is the most common in cars with a displacement up to 2. Usually found in 4- and 6- cylinder configurations the straight engine (often designated Inline engines is an Internal-combustion engine with all cylinders Engine displacement is defined as the total Volume of air/fuel mixture an Engine can draw in during one complete engine cycle it is normally stated in Cubic 4 litres. The litre or liter (see spelling differences) is a unit of Volume. The usual "practical" limit to the displacement of straight-4 engines in a car is around 2. 7 litres. However, Porsche used a 3. Porsche SE or Porsche ( German, ˈpɔɹʃə is a German manufacturer of automobiles which is majority-owned by the Porsche and Piëch 0 L four in its 944 S2 and 968 sports cars; and larger four-cylinder engines used in industrial applications, such as in small trucks and tractors, are often found with displacements up to about 4. The 944 is a Sports car built by Porsche from 1982 to 1991 It replaced the 924 as Porsche's entry level model although 924 production continued through The 968 was a Sports car sold by Porsche AG from 1992 to 1995, it took over the entry-level position in Porsche's lineup from the 6 L. Classic and Antique vehicles tended to have larger displacements to develop horsepower and torque. The Model A Ford was built with a 3. 3 litre straight-4 engine. Diesel engines for stationary, marine and locomotive use (which run at relatively low speeds) are made in much larger sizes. A diesel engine is an Internal combustion engine which operates using the Diesel cycle (named after Dr A Diesel locomotive is a type of Railroad Locomotive in which the prime mover is a Diesel engine.

Balance and smoothness

The straight-4 engine is much smoother than one, two, and three cylinder engines, and this has resulted in it becoming the engine of choice for most economy cars, although it can be found in some sports cars as well. However, the straight-4 is not a fully balanced configuration. Engine balance is the design construction and tuning of an Engine to run smoothly While it is in primary balance because one pair of pistons is always moving up at the same time as the other pair is moving down, piston speed - as with all internal combustion engines - is higher through the top 180 degrees of the crankshaft rotation than the bottom 180 degrees. Since two pistons are always moving faster in one direction while two others are moving more slowly in the other, this leads to a secondary dynamic imbalance - an up-and-down vibration at twice crankshaft speed. This imbalance is tolerable in a small, low-displacement, low-power configuration, but the vibrations get worse with increasing size and power. [2]

Most straight-4 engines below 2. 0 L in displacement rely on the damping effect of their engine mounts to reduce the vibrations to acceptable levels. Above 2. 0 L, most modern straight-4 engines now use balance shafts to eliminate the second-order harmonic vibrations. In Piston engine engineering a balance In a system invented by Dr. Frederick W. Lanchester in 1911 and popularized by Mitsubishi Motors in the 1970s, a straight-4 engine uses two balance shafts, rotating in opposite directions at twice crankshaft speed, to offset the differences in piston speed. Frederick William Lanchester, Hon FRAeS ( October 23, 1868 - March 8, 1946) was an English Polymath and is the sixth largest Automaker in Japan and the seventeenth largest in the world by global unit sales [3] However, in the past there were numerous examples of larger straight-4s without balance shafts, such as the Citroën DS 23 2347 cc engine that was a derivative of the Traction Avant engine, the 1948 Austin 2660 cc engine used in the Austin-Healey 100 and Austin Atlantic, the 3. The Citroën DS (also known as Déesse, or Goddess, after the punning initials in French is an Executive car that was produced by The Citroën Traction Avant was an Automobile produced by the French manufacturer Citroën. The Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles that rose to be a major motorcar brand the dominant partner after merger with Morris in 1952 The Austin-Healey 100 is a Sports car built between 1953 and 1959 by Jensen Motors for the British Motor Corporation. The Austin A90 Atlantic was a British car produced by the Austin Motor Company, launched initially as a sporting four seat Convertible. 3 L flathead engine used in the Ford Model A (1927), and the 2. A flathead engine or sidevalve engine (sometimes called a flatty) is an Internal combustion engine with valves placed in the engine block See also Ford Model A (1903 The Ford Model A (1927 - 1931 was the second huge success for the Ford Motor Company, after its predecessor 5 L GM Iron Duke engine used in a number of American cars and trucks. The Iron Duke (also called the 2500, 151, Pontiac 25, Cross Flow, and Tech IV, though the decal on the air filter assemblies Soviet/Russian GAZ Volga cars used aluminium big-bore straight-4 (2. Volga (Волга is automobile brand that originated in Soviet Union to replace the venerated GAZ-M20 Pobeda in 1956 WikipediaNaming 5 L) with no balance shafts in 1950s-1990s. These engines were generally the result of a long incremental evolution process and their power was kept relatively low compared to their capacity. However, the forces increase with the square of the engine speed – that is, doubling the speed makes the vibration four times worse - so modern high-speed straight-4s have more need to use balance shafts to offset the vibrations. [4]

Four cylinder engines have another problem in that the power strokes of the pistons do not overlap. With four cylinders and four cycles to complete, each piston must complete its power stroke and come to a complete stop before the next piston can start a new power stroke, resulting in a pause between each power stroke and a pulsating delivery of power. In engines with more cylinders, the power strokes overlap, which gives them a smoother delivery of power and less vibration than a four can achieve. As a result, six and eight cylinder engines are generally used in more luxurious and expensive cars. There are four cylinder engines which are "odd fired", meaning no two pistons are ever at the top of their stroke at any one time.

Automobile use

Notable straight-4 engines

Ford Model T engine
Ford Model T engine

The smallest automobile production straight-4 engine powered the 1961 Mazda P360 Carol keicar. The Ford Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and also the Flivver) was an Automobile produced by Henry Ford 's Ford This page lists superlatives of the Automobile industry - that is the smallest largest fastest lightest best-selling and other such topics 1961 P360 Carol The R360 was replaced in 1961 with the Mazda P360 Carol, the company's first 4-passenger car Kei car, K-car, or ( pronounced /keːdʑidoːɕa/ is a Japanese category of small Automobiles, including passenger cars Displacing just 358 cc, the Mazda OHV was a conventional but tiny pushrod engine. After an early flirtation with V-twin engines, Mazda 's small cars of the 1960s were powered by OHV Straight-4 engines An overhead valve (OHV engine, also called pushrod engine or I-head engine is a type of Piston engine that places the Camshaft Straight-4 motorcycle engines are built down to 250 cc, e. g. in the Honda CBR 250. The Honda CBR250 series of bikes were produced between 1986 and 1996. Most straight-4 engines, however, have been over 0. 7 L in displacement. A practical upper limit could be placed in the 2. 5 L range for production cars. Larger engines (up to 4. 5 L) have been seen in racing and light truck use, especially using diesel fuel (an example is the Mercedes-Benz MBE 904). This article is about the semi-truck For the North American use of the word see Pickup truck. Diesel or Diesel fuel (ˈdiːzəl in general is any Fuel used in Diesel engines The most common is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum The use of balance shafts allowed Porsche to use a 3. Porsche SE or Porsche ( German, ˈpɔɹʃə is a German manufacturer of automobiles which is majority-owned by the Porsche and Piëch 0 L (2990 cc) straight-4 engine on road cars first in the 944 S2 (1989-1991), but the largest modern non-diesel was the plain 3. The 944 is a Sports car built by Porsche from 1982 to 1991 It replaced the 924 as Porsche's entry level model although 924 production continued through 2 L (3188 cc) 195 in the 1961 Pontiac Tempest. From 1955 to 1981 the Pontiac Division of General Motors manufactured its own unique V8 engines distinct from Buick, The Pontiac Tempest was an entry-level compact Automobile produced by the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors, introduced in September 1960

Currently, one of the largest straight-4 engines is the 2. 7 L Toyota 3RZ-FE engine. The Toyota RZ engine family is a Straight-4 Piston engine series

In the early 20th century, bigger engines existed, both in road cars and sports cars. Due to the absence of displacement limit regulations, manufacturers took increasing liberties with engine size. In order to achieve power over 100 horsepower (75 kW), most engine builders simply increased displacement, which could sometimes achieve over 10. 0 L. One of the biggest straight-4s of its time was De Dietrich 17,000 cc motor. Its cubic capacity is over twice the size of the Cadillac's 500 CID 8. A cubic inch (plural cubic inches) is a non- SI unit of Volume, equal to the volume of a Cube with sides of one Inch. 2 L V8, which was considered the largest engine of its type in the 1970s. A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the Crankcase in two banks of four cylinders in most cases set at a right angle to each other These engines ran at very low rpm, often less than 1,500 rpm maximum, and had a specific output of about 10 hp/L. The US tractor industry both farm & industrial relied on large 4 cylinder power units until the early 1960s when 6 cylinder designs came into favor. International Harvester built a large 5. 7L (350 CID) 4 cylinder for their WD-9 series tractors.

Other technologically or historically notable engines using this configuration include:

Racing use

1913 saw a Peugeot driven by Jules Goux winning the Indianapolis 500. For the article about the bicycle manufacturer see Cycles Peugeot. Jules Goux, born April 6, 1885 - died March 6, 1965, was a Grand Prix motor racing champion and the first Frenchman to The Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, often shortened to Indianapolis 500 or Indy 500, and historically known simply as "The 500" is an American This car was powered by a straight-4 engine designed by Ernest Henry. Ernest Henry (13 May 1904 &ndash 3 June 1998 was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1920s who won a silver medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the This design was very influential for racing engines as it featured for the first time dual overhead camshafts (DOHC) and 4 valves per cylinder, a layout that would become the standard until today for racing straight-4 engines. Overhead camshaft, commonly abbreviated to OHC, Valvetrain configurations place the engine Camshaft within the Cylinder heads above the A poppet valve is a Valve consisting of a hole usually round or oval and a tapered plug usually a disk shape on the end of a shaft also called a valve stem [5]

This Peugeot was sold to the American driver "Wild Bob" Burman who broke the engine in 1915. Bob Burman ( 23 April 1884 Imlay City Michigan &ndash 18 April 1916 Corona California) was an American As Peugeot couldn't deliver a new engine during World War I, Burman asked Harry Arminius Miller to build a new engine. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Harry Arminius Miller ( December 9, 1875 – May 3, 1943) was an influential and famous American Race car builder most With John Edward and Fred Offenhauser, Miller created a Peugeot-inspired straight-4 engine. Fred Offenhauser (1888-1973 was an automotive engineer and mechanic who designed the Offenhauser racing engine nicknamed the "Offy" which dominated competition This was the first version of the engine that would dominate the Indianapolis 500 until 1976 under the brand Miller and later Offenhauser. Offenhauser was a racing engine manufacturer that operated from 1933 to 1983 The Offenhausers won five straight victories at Indianapolis from 1971 to 1976, and it was not until 1981 that they were eliminated as competitors by engines such as the Cosworth V8. Cosworth is an Automotive engineering company founded in London in 1958 specialising in engines for automobile racing (motorsport [6]

Many cars produced for the pre-WWII voiturette Grand Prix motor racing category used straight-4 engine designs. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Voiturette is a word mostly used to describe a miniature car however it has several meanings depending largely on the usage date Grand Prix motor racing has its roots in organised automobile racing that began in France as far back as 1894 1. 5L supercharged motors found their way into cars such as the Maserati 4CL and various ERA models. A supercharger is an air compressor used for Forced induction of an Internal combustion engine. The Maserati 4CL and its derived sister model the Maserati 4CLT are single-seat Racing cars that were designed and built by Maserati. English Racing Automobiles ( ERA) was a British Racing car manufacturer active from 1933 to 1954 These were resurrected after the war and formed the foundation of what was later to become Formula One.

Another engine that played an important role in Racing history is the Straight-4 Ferrari engine designed by Aurelio Lampredi. Ferrari SpA is an Italian Sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy Aurelio Lampredi ( June 16, 1917 in Livorno - June 1, 1989 in Livorno) was an Italian Automobile and This engine was originally designed as a 2 litre Formula 2 engine for the Ferrari 500 but evolved to 2. Formula Two, abbreviated to F2, was a type of Formula racing. 5 L to compete in Formula 1 in the Ferrari 625. [7] For sports car racing capacity was increased up to 3. A sports car is a term used to describe a class of Automobile. 4 L for the Ferrari 860 Monza.

Yet another very successful engine was the Coventry Climax straight-4 originally designed by Walter Hassan as a 1. Walter Hassan OBE ( April 25, 1905 - July 12, 1996) born in London, was a British automobile engineer 5 L Formula 2 engine. Enlarged to 2. 0 L for Formula 1 in 1958, it evolved into the large 2495 cc FPF that won the Formula One championship in Cooper's chassis in 1959 and 1960. The Cooper Car Company was founded in 1946 by Charles Cooper and his son John Cooper. [8]

Motorcycle use

Honda CB750 engine
Honda CB750 engine

The smallest production motorcycle straight-4 engine was the 4-stroke engine powered the 250 cc Benelli/Moto Guzzi 254. This page lists superlatives of the Automobile industry - that is the smallest largest fastest lightest best-selling and other such topics For racing, Honda built straight-4 engines as small as a 125 cc for the Honda 125/4. This engine was replaced by a 125 cc straight-5 engine. The straight-5 or inline-5 is an Internal combustion engine with five cylinders aligned in one row sharing a single Engine block and Crankcase Perhaps the largest straight-4 in a commercially-produced Honda motorcycle is the 1298 cc engine first developed for the Honda X-4 and later also used in the Honda CB1300. The Honda X4 is a 1298 cc Motorcycle produced by Honda from model years 1997&ndash2003 after which production was discontinued The Honda CB1300 is a 1284 cc Motorcycle released in 1998 as a successor to the CB1000.

Modern straight-4 motorcycle engines first gained their popularity with Honda's SOHC CB750 in the '70s. () is a Multinational corporation, engine Manufacturer and engineering corporation headquartered in Japan. Overhead camshaft, commonly abbreviated to OHC, Valvetrain configurations place the engine Camshaft within the Cylinder heads above the The Honda CB750 is a Motorcycle built in several model series between 1969 and 2003 Since then, the straight-4 has become one of the most common engine configurations in street bikes. Outside of the cruiser category, the straight-4 is simply the most common configuration, because of its relatively high performance-to-cost ratio. Cruiser is the term for Motorcycles that mimic the design style of American machines from the 1930s to the early 1960s including those made by Harley-Davidson All of the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers offer motorcycles with straight-4 engines, as does BMW, though BMW mounts the engine longitudinally, as opposed to the more common transverse-mounting. BMW Motorrad, a division of BMW, is a German Motorcycle manufacturer In Automotive engineering, a longitudinal engine, also sometimes known as a north-south engine, is an Internal combustion engine in which the Crankshaft A transverse engine is an Engine in which the Crankshaft is oriented side-to-side relative to the length of the vehicle Even the modern Triumph company has offered a straight-4-powered motorcycle, though it was discontinued in favor of a triple. Triumph Motorcycles is a British Motorcycle manufacturer originally based in Coventry. Triumph Triple is an inline motorcycle engine manufactured by the Triumph Motorcycle Company.

References

  1. ^ Nunney, M J (2006). Light and Heavy Vehicle Technology, Fourth Edition. Butterworth-Heinemann, p. 12. ISBN 0750680377.  
  2. ^ Nunney, op. cit. , pp. 14-15.
  3. ^ Nunney, op cit, pp. 42-44
  4. ^ Nunney, op. cit. , pp. 40-44.
  5. ^ Ludvigsen, Karl (2001). Classic Racing Engines. Haynes Publishing, pp. 14-17. ISBN 1859606490.  
  6. ^ Ludvigsen, op. cit. , pp. 182-185.
  7. ^ Ludvigsen, op. cit. , pp. 78-81 ,86-89.
  8. ^ Ludvigsen, op. cit. , pp. 130-133.
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