Types of Engines and How They Work

Rotary engine: This engine is the most complicated engine on the list and the only engine on this list that is no longer in use. This engine has a rotating triangle that first sucks in gas and air into the chamber then compresses then ignites it with spark plugs and pushes it all out of the exhaust in one rotation hence the name rotary engine. When it was in use it had the best power per revolution over the two and four stroke engines and was used in race cars. The rotary is very inexpensive but was plagued with mechanical problems such as slow combustion, horrible fuel economy, and poor fuel emission problems so it was scraped.

In-line engine: This type of engine is the first engine on this list that has different classes such as inline 4 and inline 6 but what does that mean well an inline 4 means that the pistons are in-line with each other hence the name inline and an inline 6 is the same thing just with more pistons. the inline engine is the second most universal engine being in cars like the Toyota corolla and Honda Civic this engine is the least complicated engine to work on and is the cheapest, so it is in a lot of compact economy cars.

V engine: The V engine is the most universal engine being in some of my favorite cars such as the corvette ZR1 and the McLaren Senna. This engine has pistons that arrange in a V shape and is the second largest engine type with the smallest being V-twin more common in motorcycles up to V12 in cars like the Lamborghini Centenario and the Ferrari FXX k. A fun fact about the V engine they only have pistons that can be divided by two because the pistons are on opposite sides.

W Engine: This is the largest engine ever put In a production vehicle and was first produced by believe it or not Volkswagen but they used it for an aircraft so the first real use of the engine in a car goes to the Bugatti Veyron with their W16 engine remember earlier in the paper I mentioned the V engine is arranged in a V shape well the W engine is arranged in a W shape where there is a V shape but the also have pistons going straight up like and inline so basically the took an Inline and put it on top of a V engine.