What types of engines are available for cars? What makes one better than the other?
Oh my… there are many types of engines available. I’ll try to answer this one relatively completely. There are rotary engines (certain Mazdas) and piston engines (everything else). Piston engines are available in many different cylinder layouts and with different valvetrains and methods of fuel delivery. Or for that matter, different fuels, like diesel. CYLINDER LAYOUT: Inline engines, with all of the cylinders in a single line, need only one cylinder head and valvetrain, which reduces the part count somewhat. They are simpler to put intake and exhaust manifolds on. However, they do get long. FWD cars mount their engines transversely, so they are generally limited to 4 cylinders if they use an inline engine. RWD and AWD cars can use 6 cylinders before the hood gets ridiculously long. V-engines have two banks of cylinders, and thus require two cylinder heads, two valvetrains, and (generally) two exhaust manifolds. Compared to an inline engine, you can get twice as many cylinders in (r
