Was just having a quiet thought - we all seem to agree that the flat 4 (boxer) engine has many advantages, low slung in the car so lower centre of gravity, excellent noise due to unbalanced exhaust.

This being the case, why do not more manufacturers make boxer engines???

Porsche made the flat 6 but I can't think of any others ?

Is there some fundamental disadvantage to flat 4's???

Mike

 

Alfa have made a number of flat 4s over the years, with a similar sound... as have VW in the Beetle and camper vans. I think the main reason people don't make them so much is that they are much wider, and need more components - rather than just having one or two camshafts, for instance, you need two or four, etc.

And anyway if everyone made them, ours wouldn't be so unusual

Richard

 

Re-bit,

Interseting about more components. Presumably in the reliability/cost vs weight distribution debate the former wins out.

Also presume that this is the reason why very few boxers in motorsport??

Mike

 

Flat fours been around for years. All the millions of original VW beetles were aircooled flat fours as were the first Porsches which were simply tarted up VWs. Back in the 1950s, I believe the old Jowett Jupiter and other variants were flat fours, but, I could be wrong on that one.

The rear mounted flat fours in the old beetles were relatively lowslung taking good advantage of lower centre of gravity benefits. Those Subarus I've looked at whilst flat fours of course, have the power unit mounted fairly high in the engine bay thus negating some of the benefits of low c. of g.

Yes, they are more costly to produce ... two cylinder heads instead of one etc, etc, but, these aspects are true of any V4-V6-V8 engine too!

 

The main reason that flat engines aren't used in motorsport is the fact that the exhaust system gets in the way. Therefore the engine can't be mounted low in the chasis and give the CoG advantage that it should. Hope that makes sense, I'm feeling particularly dyslexic today. J

 

Ferrari have made a few aswell, the 512Boxer springs to mind!!

 

Subaru also make a flat 6 - the H6 as used in the Legacy.

Chris

 

wasn't the testarossa a flat 12 or was it a v12 i've got a model of one it looks like a flat 12