Kooldac

God help me if this is in a wrong forum section. This is the only car forum I regurally visit but my question has nothing to do with Mustangs.

I understand a "flat" cylinder allignment versus V. All I have seen are the sets of pistons riding horizontally. Is it possible or practical to make them vertical instead? I would think that the physics of gravity would be helping the bottom set of pistons to travel to the top of the heads quicker and gravity would then appose the force for the top set. I'm sure this could be fixed with some handy engineering somehow. I would think that it would be stressful on the crankshaft with different change in momentums. A few friends seem to disaggree with me on this one. Thanks

patriot98

Flat, or also known as horizontally opposed, and also aka boxer engines are used in performance automobiles to lower center of gravity.

The way you think gravity effecting pistons is a wrong assumption, gravity is 1g on a normal object, it is much less on a piston inside an engine, on which forces in excess of 50g or more are acting constantly. So gravity is not taken into account.

Now, it is impossible to have pistons vertically, there will be too much vibrations and such packaging would be impractical. Besides, center of gravity of vehicle will be too far up.



By the way, these are wrong forums to ask such question, so that you know. People here are into basics, and this is abstract thinking, I doubt you will find on here minds that are capable of thinking like this. This is more of a kindergarten than anything else. A physics forum or usenet will give you much better answers. For all your technical lost check out autozine technical school.

Chopper

The effect of gravity on pistons running in a cylinder wouldn't even be enought to overcome ring friction.However,the effect of oil poolong in the bottom cylinders would be enough to cause hydraulic lock upon startup.That's the reason you see the ground crews in those WWII documentaries pulling the propellers around on the radial engines before the engines are started.If you notice,they still smoke like Hell when they start.
You would also have oil return problems with overhead cams or valves which would require a scavenge pump to keep oil from pooling in the rocker or cam covers.
The alignment of the crankshaft would be higher requiring a separate gear to bring the driveshaft down so it could still go under the car instead of through the passenger comatrment.
Those are just a few of the biggest difficulies associated with "upside down" cylinders and there are more.

patriot98

Remember what I told you about abstract ideas on this site? For what it was though, a nice response .......about radial engines and wet sump lubrication.

Chopper

What about inline six's and fours?They're vertical they just aren't "upside down" like the bottom cylinders of a radial.
Abstract????

Colorado_Mustang

He's obviously a first year student at some wiz-bang tech school and knows more than all the members of this forum combined.

7upedition

Well impossible no, but very impractical, the inline six cylinder motors found in many jeeps have all siz cylinder vertically upwards, your idea of turning a flat motor 90* would be doable but as said before very hard to keep oil in the pan where its supposed to be. lol

And patriot98, don't be a dick! This is a general tech question and this idea is a general motor question, and i don't think you should assume the intelligence of the members. just a little food for thought

Kooldac

Thanks for all your thought out replies. Learned a little something today