Originally Posted by
BjD
I think he meant a radial engine, as in having a number of pistons arranged in a circle and driving a single crank throw.
Not sure how the balancing would work out on those either, it wouldn't be like a boxer. A true boxer (in my way of thinking) has one piston per crank throw, so pairs of pistons are moving in opposite directions, hence cancelling the motion out (nearly, being offset from each other you get a couple generated).
I think the bigger radials have two sets of pistons back to back. I imagine they are 180 degrees out of phase which would cancel out the vibrations.
In fact, I understand some early aircraft radials had the crankshaft fixed to the plane and the cylinder block rotating with the propellor! Zero vibration
when I saw this I think Hmm another misguided soul those airplane engines you are talking about with the motor block rotating... yeah they vibrate like there is no tomorrow!!! basically because when each piston fired it it put tremendous force on the block and shoved it around and if they had a number of pistons under 18 then they had to be on a heavily reinforced mount (one of the big reasons this engine got fased out) however they felt pretty good when you got them off the ground and had the revs up...
Power, whether measured as HP, PS, or KW is what accelerates cars and gets it up to top speed. Power also determines how far you take a wall when you hit it
Engine torque is an illusion.