18 Dec What Is Boxing Day | What Are Boxer Engines?
What Is Boxing Day | What Are Boxer Engines?
Today we bring you a boxer engine special together as a boxing day feature. What’s engine? you ask does it throw punches or is the Mohamed Ali or George Foremen of car engines, well today we take detailed peak into this engine type and the cars that have the boxer engine type.
What Is a Boxer Engine?
In 1896, Karl Benz invented the first internal combustion engine with horizontally opposed pistons. He called it the kontra engine, as the action of each side opposed the action of the other. This design has since been called the “boxer” engine because each pair of pistons moves in and out together, rather like the gloves of a boxer. The boxer engine has pairs of pistons reaching TDC simultaneously.
Boxer Configuration
It’s the only configuration in common use that does not have unbalanced forces with a four-stroke cycle regardless of the number of cylinders, as long as both banks have the same number of cylinders. These engines do not require a balance shaft or counterweights on the crankshaft to balance the weight of the reciprocating parts, which are required in most other engine configurations. However, in the case of boxer engines with fewer than six cylinders, unbalanced moments (a reciprocating torque also known as a “rocking couple”) are unavoidable due to the “opposite” cylinders being slightly out of line with each other. Other engine configurations with natural dynamic balance include the straight-six, the straight-eight, the V12, and the V16.
Boxer engines (and flat engines in general) tend to be noisier than other common engines for both intrinsic and other reasons. In cars, the valve clatter from the engine compartment is not damped by air filters or other components. “In essence boxer engines have pistons that behave like a boxer throwing punches horizontally” hence the term boxer engine, coupled with a very stable centre of gravity meaning there’s less downward piston thrusts pressure on the vehicle chassis.
What Are the Benefits of Having a Boxer Engine Car
They have a larger surface area-to-volume ratio. Unlike an in-line four, where the “hot” area (upper cylinder & head) is compact and nicely grouped, in a boxer you have two “hot” extremes separated by a “cool” block. This makes the design much more complicated in terms of keeping tight tolerances in light of differential thermal expansion. In a boxer it is nearly impossible to keep uniform temperatures across the cylinder / head area. Because the cylinder block is more compact in an in-line 4, it’s easier to design a cooling system that will keep the entire block’s temperature more uniform. The result is that in-line engines can operate within tighter tolerances.
Here Are Some Vehicle Models With The Boxer Engines: the Subaru, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari 312B, Porsche Boxster/Cayman, Volkswagen Schwimmwagen, Toyota Publica Sports just to name a few, hope you enjoyed this boxing day, boxer engine special feature.