Dream Engines
 

My dream engine is a 1.5 litre inline 6. With the engine designed to keep the overall length small enough that it could go transverse in all but the smallest cars. The only engine driven accessory would be the alternator it could be gear driven with the cams. The accessory loads (steering, water pump, AC etc., would all be electric, possibly variable speed or 2 stage pumps, and used in a smart manner by the ECU. The engine would have a flywheel takeoff that would get spun before fuel injection cut outs when coasting and stopped. The spinning flywheel would be used to assist the engine in starting and also the car. Diesel or gasoline, but direct injection.

I really love the simplicity of the straight six, I'd just like to see one in smaller vehicles rather than just some BMWs and big highway rigs. One cylinder head, overlapping power pulses, perfect primary and secondary balance, intake on one side, exhaust on the other... It's a shame that V6s killed most of them off with packaging, because they are a great design for an ICE. A 1500cc 6 wouldn't need to be much longer than the Honda CBX motorcycle was wide.

Just FYI -- the VW VR6 is a straight 6 ;)

Well... technically it's a straight 6 -- but by design, the cylinders are very slightly offset to make it very compact ;)
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I particularly like scotch yoke mechanisms and Atkinson cycle engines :p

The VR6 has 15° of compromise and never really struck me as miserly, but it was a clever idea, and the W12 just plane excessive! LOL

I like cheap and reliable. ;)
Power is nice bonus, but w/o weight in the equation it's kinda silly to talk about.

lol old straight 6's had a crapload of tourque. and yes plenty easy to work on(well when the straight 6's were evrywhere cars were huge so that doesnt count)

i would DEFFINATELY not be wanting to be runnign AC off electric it would be a house window unit in your car, those htings draw some major amperage which means you would need one flippin big alternater to handle all that!!!not to mention a decent sized power steering pump(which you dont need on most of todays comapct cars, just everyones gotten lazy(hence power windows, locks, (UHGGGG LEVERS SO HEAVY TO LIFT/SLIDE/CRANK!!!)auto matic wipers, power seats, automatic headlights... i can go on!!!!man it must be so confusing on when/how to turn on the headlights /wipers....now we have self parking cars! i swear pretty soon were gonan have fully automated pods that read our thoughts to take us places because people are too burdened from taking .05 seconds away from their phone conversations to *GASP* press a pedal or turn a wheel!!!

lol sorry for my rant but im tired of hearing about all this new junk thier putting on cars...and when it breaks its all controled by microprocessors hidden so far up the dash board you need Gumbys arms to get to it!

i wonder what a large bore 4 cyl would do...

lol i saw a straight 8 from the 50's... wow now ur talkign a huge flippin engine!!!:D

My dream engine is a long stroke 4 banger with variable valve timing so it works like a Miller/Atkinson cycle motor at low revs for good efficiency. It would be turbocharged of course to have sufficient power, plus the turbo would allow the motor to be downsized for even better FE when off boost.

2TonJellyBean -

Would a straight-6 lend itself to cylinder deactivation?

CarloSW2

I work at a new car dealership and we talk about the same stuff every day!!! New buyers these days cant do ANYTHING!!!! I had to tell a lady she could still unlock her door if the remote battery went dead!!!!!!

Oh, and I dont want a light telling me my tires are not set where they say they should be. I check my tires, and if I dont, thats my fault.

If they bankrolled me there would be a horisontally opposed flat 4, or more specifically two opposed flat 2s seperated by a clutch.

You could completely disconnect half the engine and it would still be well balanced by design. This has to have been tried before.

Lets say you take two back halves of two aircooled vw engines, tig (or bolt) in a plate and a spot for crank and cam bearings on the front end. install clutches and make the front of the rear block mate with the rear of the front block(modified bellhousing and a spline on the front of the rear block).

A lever to kill the engine and disconnect the clutch and you're there, though you might want to lighten the flywheels significantly (or not). Hmm... Heavy flywheel=bad for pulse and glide perhaps, Hmm.... I wonder if you could just replace the rear two cylinders WITH a flywheel with a clutch on each end. Just downshift to brake/spool up the flywheel with the 2 cylinder engine off. The engine just maintains flywheel speed as necessary, should be just strong enough to hold about 55mph at max efficiency.

Somebody should make a flywheel out of batteries :)