W12 engine design

NOS-> · 04-17-05, 03:53 AM

do any of you know how the W- type engine works?
how is it so compact and yet generate so much HP?

wEstSide · 04-17-05, 04:50 AM

Good question. There is in fact very simple answer to this perplexing question. You know the VR6 motor? They basically put two of those low-angle V6s together and made it a W motor (should be pronounced "duble-vay"). There is another way of doing this, but it just gets reaaaaally complicated. Autozine has a good explanation: http://www.autozine.org/technical_sc...kaging.htm#W12
If you read down a bit they also explain the W18 which is very technical (18 is not divisible by 4)

bleh · 04-17-05, 05:32 AM

thats a good article. thanks for sharing

NOS-> · 04-18-05, 12:32 AM

thanx alot, i tried typing it in at google but it didnt give me anything besides the W12 nardo concept and it didnt have much detail. I have one more question. can the W12 engine generate more HP then a V12?

bleh · 04-18-05, 01:24 AM

it could..

LateNightCable · 04-18-05, 09:15 PM

I really don't think the arrangement of the cylinders have as great an impact on the output as other factors. So whether a "W" would make more power than a V or vice versa would really depend on the level of tuning and sophistication. A V12 is a quite ideal arrangement anyway.

Personally, I tend to think of the "W" concept as more or less a gimmick - just another way of putting the eggs in the basket, and a much more complex one at that. The claim that they could never be racing engines due to their thin connecting rods ( an endurance issue ) says a lot about the general impracticality of the setup.

More traditional engine layouts are more compact now, than ever before.

NOS-> · 04-18-05, 11:30 PM

ok thanx alot. ive been wanting to know that for like 3 months.

psychedelia · 11-05-05, 03:43 AM

Old thread, but what the hell. Im just going to mention the Bugatti Veyrons W16 engine. The reason it's a W engine rather than a V is all about making everything more compact. A few things on the engine.
Two VR8 blocks, each with a fifteen degree bank angle, are joined in the crankcase to form one engine. Both eight cylinders are set at an angle of ninety degrees to each other and are aspirated by a total of four exhaust gas turbochargers.

Rather than try and squeeze 16 cylinders into a vee format, Volkswagen came up with a much more compact idea a few years ago - the 'W' configuration. In layman's terms, it's basically two 4.0-litre V8s sharing the same crankshaft, which makes it more compact than similarly sized V12s.

bleh · 11-05-05, 05:37 AM

nice pictures.

i think a tt v12 could get the job done without breaking a sweat though...

i mean if we have supras and skylines making well over 1000hp all over the place than 1000hp with twice the cylinders shouldnt be that hard. no need to go to 16. i think they did it just to do it haha. i do think that the vr6 was only engine to really take full advantage of such a new layout with the cam design.

LateNightCable · 11-16-05, 10:48 PM

The "W" layout really doesn't save a lot of space, at least not in relation to it's reletive complexity. If VW had really cared that much about keeping things compact, the Veyron would be a different car, and they probably wouldn't have used 16 cylinders to do a job a smaller engine could do. As Bleh said, it's all more for wow factor.

If it costs over $1,000,000, it better wow the crowd and be like nothing else.