$74,000

no, not all engines are the same, if you drive a W-8 back to back with a V-8 the W-8 will not be as smooth, it has odd firing sequence.

no on the V-12 vs. W-12, the V-12 is second most if not smoothest engine on the planet. when you take to buzzy VR-6s and put them at a weird angle they need to put different dampeners on them when a V-12 wouldn't need this appliance.

yes there are many differences in terms of performance for V-12 vs. W-12 just look at the charts.

if you look I said besides packing efficiency what are the major benefits of a "W" engine.

Reply to
Tha Ghee
Loading thread data ...

no it isn't a V-12 is in no the smoothest engine it's 1a, a W-12 can never be as smooth, it's 2 VR-6s attached at a weird angle.

Reply to
Tha Ghee

In article , Tha Ghee writes

I suspect a good straight six engine such as a BMW one would be smoother than a V12, purely because the pistons are all moving in one plane and can therefore cancel out each other's momentum more easily than they can in a Vee engine.

Reply to
Toby Groves

So, Ghee,

What is it like owning both a V-12 Lambo and a W-12 A8? I mean, you have driven both cars - you must have, or else your opinion on vibration and harshness would have no basis in reality. And you never have pulled a statement from your ass before, right?

Reply to
Byron

An inline 6 is the engine configuration with the fewest cylinders that can be perfectly balanced. A V-8 can be perfectly balanced, and a V-12 can as well. If you can get an I-6 perfectly balanced, then you can also perfectly balance 2 I-6 engines joined together in one block.

I'm not sure if a W-12 can be perfectly balanced, as it's a configuration that is newer than my textbooks. And I think other configurations can be as well, such as a V-16.

However, just because the configurations I listed above _can_ be perfectly balanced, that does not always mean that every engine with those layouts actually are.

Engine designers can use a whole bag of tricks to make engines that are not inherently smooth feel quite good to the car owner. I-4, I-5, V-5, V-6, I-8, V-10 can use balance shafts to quell the noise. And for engines with a V or W configuration, designers can use the proper angle between the cylinder banks. 60 degrees is best for a V-6 - when GM converted it's cars from using V-8 engines (which are best balanced with a 90 degree configuration) to 6 cylinders in the 1980s, they didn't want to throw away the machinery that bored the cylinders out. So they made

90 degree V-6s, which were quite rough. That was one of the factors that gave rise to the increasing market share that foreign manufacturers now enjoy.

The VR-6 (I've owned two), with a 15 degree cylinder angle is quite a smooth engine, because its angle is close to the zero of the I-6. It's not perfect, but it is smoother than the Japanese I-4 I now use.

Reply to
Byron

What the hell does the engine's firing sequence have to do with smoothness?

What kind of B.S. generality is that? WHICH V12? The MB one? The BMW one? The Lamborghini one?

The W12 uses the same 10 degree angle that the VR engines do.

I believe MB's V12 uses balance shafts, actually.

Again, a generality. MB's V12 outperforms the W12 but it's fitted with Twin Turbochargers so what do you expect?

It doesn't matter how you worded it, you were wrong.

Reply to
Steve Grauman

Most V6s are 90 degrees, AFAIK.

Reply to
Steve Grauman

It's not that simple. The Murcielago's V12 wouldn't have fit in the A8. Plus, they can't produce them in great enough number for A8 application.

FITMENT. The A8 wouldn't have accpeted a V-12 of that displacement.

This is the result of Adui's tuning, not the engine type.

B.S. I've ridden in a W12 Pheaton and it was incredible.

Reply to
Steve Grauman

Many American V-6's _are_ 90 degrees for the reason I stated in my earlier post including the very popular GM 3.8 liter, now in it's 3rd or

4th generation. That engine was fitted with balance shafts in the mid '90s and it ran pretty smoothly in a rental car I drove.

But most modern V-6 engines that are developed from scratch will have a

60 degree angle. Even modular engine families, such as the one Ford developed in 1996 (which spawned a V-6, several V-8s, and a V-10) use a 60 degree angle for the 6 and a 90 degree angle for the others (even though 72 degrees is ideal for a V-10).
formatting link
's 240hp V-6 is 60 degrees and is used in the Accord, Odyssey, Pilot, others? The 3.5L V-6 Nissan/Infinity puts into almost everything is 60 degrees.

I may be mistaken by saying that the I-6 was the configuration with the fewest cylinders that is inherently balanced. While writing this response I found a site that says all boxer engines, even the H-4 are perfectly balanced because the cylinders move in the same plane at the same time. But I think the H4 has second order harmonics that make the I-6 smoother. I do know that the H-4 in my WRX, while quiet and powerful, isn't as smooth at idle as the I-6 engines I've test driven.

By the way, this page

formatting link
pretty interesting. And this page
formatting link
some of the physics behind it. The 5th page of the article has info specific to the VR6, W8, and W12 engines. For a fairly in-depth engineering explanation, check this site out
formatting link

Reply to
Byron

In article , Steve Grauman writes

Err, everything!

Smoothness is all down to the movement of the pistons relative to each other. They need to fire in a sequence such that their momentum relative to each other balances out.

Reply to
Toby Groves

I'm having a fit of dumbshit and not following. I'm well aware of how the standard combustion driven engine operates but I'm not sure as to how a

4-cylinder with a 1-2-3-4 firing order could be any more or less smooth than one with a 1-3-4-2 firing order, or any other variation. Beyond that, I've ridden in a W12 Pheaton and found it to be quite smooth, so I find Ghee's claims (as usual) to be obnoxious.
Reply to
Steve Grauman

I seriously dislike the GM 3.8. I've driven an N/A version as well as two supercharged units (a 2001 Bonneville SSEi and a 2004 Grand Prix GTP) and disliked both. The supercharged version has a ton of torque but it did very little to help get quick 0-60 times from the bloated Bonneville. The 3.1 in the Malibu was worse, although I've not driven the new version. But 170Hp from a

3.1 litre V6 is stupid to say the least.

Does this include the unit (2.5 litres?) used in the Contour or just the 3.0 litre used in the Taurus? I always liked the Contour, for what it was. I thought it was Ford's best sedan with the possible exception on the 2nd Gen. V6 powered SHO.

The Accord is a 3.0 litre. The Odyssey and Pilot have a 3.5 litre engine, as does the 3.5RL, but the Acura's is different. I drove a Pilot and liked the

3.5, a friend's 2004 Accord is nice too, but a little more torque could be useful.

The H-4 is the WRX felt a bit gruff to me. But the boxer-sixes in Porsches are made of automotive dreams. ;-)

Reply to
Steve Grauman

The engine family I referred to is the one used in the Mustang and their truck lines. The duratec engines, which started with the 2.5 60 degree V-6 in the Contour, and was expanded to 3.0 in the Taurus and the 3.4 60 degree V-8 (a 2.5 with 2 extra cylinders) in the last SHO. The 60 degree V-8 pretty much killed the SHO - along with its high price. There's a new duratec 3.5L V-6 coming out within a year.

You're right. But they're all 60 degree V-6s.

If I coulda I woulda... 'course I tried to get into a used '00 S4, but the new '02 WRX fit so much better into my budget.

Reply to
Byron

Yuck. They could've gotten the same power output and better fuel economy from a

3.0 litre motor. A twin-cam, multi-valve setup would've been nice too.

That car was pitiful. An overpriced P.O.S. as far as I'm concerned, not to mention ugly and not particularly fast if memory serves me.

I hadn't heard about that. I know that something based on the Futura concept and built on the Mazda 6 platform is set to replace the Taurus and Sable. A 3.5 would be nice, if it's done right. But even the 3.0 in the 6 would be an improvement over the current Taurus mill.

I came very near getting a 944 Turbo instead of my VW. But the high maintenance and insurance costs put me off and the 968 would've been the same scenario with a higher buy-in price. I thought the WRX was a great bang for the buck but I thought the VW was more comfortable and already more than quick enough to get me in trouble. I've been pondering buying a Grand National from a local guy who's selling his, but I think it'd be a stretch and I fear the car would spend most of the time in the garage thanks to gas, insurance and registration costs.

Reply to
Steve Grauman

The firing order will have an effect on the frequency distribution of the vibration, thus affecting the peak intensity which is what will be perceived by the human. A 1-3-4-2 order should, hypothetically, produce vibrations of twice the frequency and half the amplitude that would be generated by a 1-2-3-4 order. (This is one of the reasons why 1-3-4-2 or 1-3-2-4 are more commounly used than 1-2-3-4.)

Indeed. Car & Driver's recent writeup of the W12 Phaeton uses words like "completely silent", "won't even realize it's running", and "no vibration transmitted through the steering column" or some such. That's low enough in vibration for me.

-- Mike Smith

Reply to
Mike Smith

Then again, there are some modern weirdos, like the SAAB/Opel 3.0 V6 that was used in the Saturn LS2/L300 - it has a 54-degree angle. Go figure.

-- Mike Smith

Reply to
Mike Smith

In article , Mike Smith writes

Indeed. I've worked a fair bit in the production plant at Crewe where the Bentley Continental GT is manufactured, and those things can really sneak up on you, they're so quiet.

Reply to
Toby Groves

Interesting....

Reply to
Steve Grauman

never said I owned both just drove a V-12 MB pack to back with a W-12 VW, can you read this. I didn't pull anything from my ass I sorry your head is there.

Reply to
Tha Ghee

then make the A8 wider, it's a big car why keep it skinny. the A8 sells less than 10K a year that's only 850 a month I think AudiAG can produce that. never said it wasn't a great car, past being a VW but it's not as smooth as a VS.-12.

Reply to
Tha Ghee

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.