what a liter is and does in reference to a vehicle engine.
In: 4
Total displacement as in area of piston times how much it moves from the top of the stroke to the bottom times number of cylinders.
Gas engines work on the force of a bunch of controlled explosions of gasoline vapor and air. These explosions take place inside “cylinders.”
A piston pulls out of the cylinder, and gasoline vapor and air are drawn into the cylinder.
Then the piston pushes in, compressing the gas/air mixture.
Then the sparkplug ignites the compressed gas/air mixture, creating an explosion that transfers a bunch of energy into moving the piston back out.
The piston pushes in again, and the cycle repeats.
“One liter” means that if you add the volume of all the cylinders (and eight is a common number of cylinders for a medium sized truck; maybe four or five for a compact car) you would have a liter of explosion space.
I have a one-liter motorcycle which has four cylinders, each one approximately 250 mL.
You could have a smaller engine by having fewer cylinders or by having smaller cylinders, and you would harvest a smaller amount of power.
~~cylinders are also called carbs or carburetors.~~
My bad. I have an old Suzuki and no formal motor training. Sorry.
Most basic definition is that its the size of the engine. Measured in Liters or Cubic Inches most of the time. The engine size does not always equal more power or anything, just size really.
Picture a water bottle. Now we spray a little gasoline in it and light it, so the gas goes boom. We use the boom to push a stick, which pushes a gear, which turns another gear, which ultimately pushes the wheels.
Engines use multiple of these “water bottles” (called cylinders) – each going boom in sequence to power the wheels.
Liters refer to the total size of the water bottles (cylinders). Bigger bottles = more gas = more boom = more go.
it’s called displacement and it’s simply the volume of the combustion chambers(piston chamber or cylinder) combined.
this is generally the base power factor. as of current it pretty much only defines low rev torque(how quickly it can move a thing from idle) and minimum gas millage(the bigger the worse low rev efficiency).
with modern engine design(turbos, fuel injection, variable timing and soon to come variable compression) the liter of displacement or cube inch doesn’t mean nearly as much unless you looking to modify it to high performance uses.
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