ReallyReallyGoodMeat

If like me you're a bit ignorant about the internal combustion engine, you could do worse than read this link...

http://arstechnica.com/features/2012...rther-on-less/

It also goes into various engine designs like MultiAir, VTEC, and VVT and what it all means and how engineers are making engines more efficient.

Quite a good read I thought.

TelBoy

Nicely written, as you say.

What always amazes me is how engines can work at such high rates of revolution. I mean it's pretty difficult to imagine something going round at 6,000 times per minute, let alone to breathe in air/petrol, burn it and expel it that many times. Surely at those speeds it just becomes a bit of a blur within the engine?

David Lock

And you can double, or almost treble, those rpm figures for race engines.

dl

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

I think F1 engines aren't belt driven either. I'm sure they use pneumatic valves. So that's 18000 times a minute that the ecu has to put out a signal to each of the 8 solenoids. 144000 electrical pulses a minute, just to control the valves!
Incredible when you think about it really.

dpb

Wonder whether this peter dearman will get anything for his invention.

speedking

An engine speed of 6000rpm = 100 revs per second.
With an 80mm stroke the piston is travelling 16 metres per second, that's an average speed of 36mph. Considering that the piston is stationary at each end of its travel we can say that it is doing about 72mph at peak. So that is 0-60mph in about 1/200 of a second

DT-SPD

iTrader: (7)

Its the valve springs that are pneumatic, they are still operated by camshafts which are usually gear driven.

CrisPDuk

I have a '70s motorbike that's red-lined at 12k

Even back then race engines were capable of revving far beyond that, remember F1 turbo engines

MOTORS S GT

iTrader: (2)

The 2008 Merc V8 F1 engines revved to 23,000 rpm, before the FIA pegged the rev limit.

TelBoy

Crazy speeds. Even something just going round and round that fast is an engineering feat, let alone making it blow up some petrol every nanosecond. Incomprehensible.

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

What about the petrol RC car's tiny single-piston 2-stroke engine!... The rpms for those are stratospheric!

Okay, so the reciprocating parts' tiny mass means very low inertia; but nonetheless!