For example, why would a car manufacturer opt to to use a 2.0L in line six instead of a 2.0L in line four in a vehicle. Are the benefits of including more cylinders in an engine worth the added complexity?
In: Engineering
It has a lot to do with how fast fire can move, flame front and flame propagation speed. Gist for ELI5 is that the explosion/fire can only move so fast and how fast it moves actually depends one the mix of gas and air. Too lean or too rich actually slows down the propagation of flame through a cylinder.
Typical engine cylinder has the spark plug near center roof. It takes time for the flame to burn all the way to the edges of the cylinder. You want the expanding flame/gases/molecules can push down evenly on the piston not just the center part. The cylinder bore size and stroke is optimized for this.
What others have also mentioned about the walls cooling the flame as well also does absolutely play a roll in complete combustion. If the cylinder walls are it too cold, it essentially puts the flame out. Fire needs heat, fuel, oxygen.
Most interesting college class I took was combustion.
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