![]() | This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
There needs to be a concensus on the descriptive terms used to describe motorcycle engines. For example most 4 cylinder engines are in-line fours, most Japanese four cylinder engines are transversely mounted (that is across the frame) but others like the Indian, Nimbus and BMW K100 are longitudinally mounted. All however are inline fours as opposed to horizontally opposed fours, square fours or V4s.
The usual description for a transversely monted inline twin motorcycle is parallel twin with inline twin usually being reserved for an engine layout like the Sunbeam S7/8.
Also remember geographical bias when claiming that one layout is the most common. While V-twins may be the most common twin in the US, parallel or horizontally opposed are more common elsewhere.
Actually two-stroke motorcycle engines can, and hi-performance ones do, have more displacement then cylinder size might suggest. This is due the crank-case acting as a Supercharger-like compressor before intake air is spooled, thus over-filling the cylinder with 'boost' if you will.
turbo-charged engines over-fill aswell ofcource... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.187.71.66 ( talk) 12:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Displacement is Pi times one half of the bore, squared, times the stroke. Nothing more or less. Krontach ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC).
Comment on the engine diagrams: the classic V-twin has a single crank pin shared by both cylinders, not dual crank pins as drawn. Rracecarr 00:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. The drawing is incorrect, but is there an editor watching this page? Seasalt 04:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
On the workpage I have reformatted this article with conventional section formatting instead of a table in the cylinders and configuration section. I'm not sure which one is better. Probably it's better to keep it simple, for long-term maintenance. -- Dbratland ( talk) 23:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
There has been some confusion in this article, hopefully now cleared up, about longitudinal vs. transverse. But I just wanted to state the following for the record so that this and all other motorcycle articles use the correct terminology.
A longitudinal engine is one where the crankshaft is oriented from front to back i.e. along the long axis of the bike.
A transverse engine is one where the crankshaft is oriented from left to right i.e. across the short axis of the bike.
The confusion mostly seems to arise with V-engines and flat-twin engines as people think about orientation of the cylinders, which is opposite to the crank orientation. In a v-twin or flat twin which has cylinders poking out of either side of the bike (as with Guzzi & BMW) the crank is oriented longitudinally, so this is a longitudinal engine. The typical American and Ducati v-twin configuration with one cylinder oriented towards the front and one towards the back has the crank oriented transversely, so this is a transverse engine. -- Biker Biker ( talk) 09:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Because so many sources are inconsistent about this, the safest thing is not say "transverse engine" but try to say "transverse crankshaft engine" so that it's clear you're talking about the crank. Gaetano Cocco in Motorcycle design and technology follows this practice. It's awkward, but I don't know any other solution unless WP can make a proclamation that everyone who says it the other way is officially wrong. -- Dbratland ( talk) 18:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
That is not now Wikipedia works. You don't get to just ignore sources because you disagree with them. I understand how much easier it would be if we could just decide to rationalize irrational things on our whim, but we can't. If we could do that, we could erase the difference between British and American spelling, and forget about constantly converting metric units. There are lots of Wikipedia policies that cover this sort of thing, but the most relevant might be Righting Great Wrongs and Wikipedia:Advocacy. As in, Wikipedia cannot right them. Wikipedia cannot teach the world to use the "correct" terminology. Maybe they are wrong, and we can certainly convey what the various authorities say on this subject, but we can't fix it. It is not our job to fix it. -- Dbratland ( talk) 23:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
" Japanese manufacturers are not linked to any one layout in the same way and Honda, in particular, have produced almost every possible configuration and type." who wrote this, yes Japanese manufacturers have produced alot of different ones but they are heavily linked with in-line four stroke engines, might consider changing this, maybe revising the entire paragraph cause its not very well written the way it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.175.150 ( talk) 19:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
If you are going to include steam veolcipedes then there should be an infobox for these types of engines. This should include:
And this should also be consistent with the terms used to rank Steam Locomotive engines. There are very good reasons why steam doesn't exist as a viable drive type for transport machines. One is a lack of safety. Another is lack of range. There isn't going to be a relevant AMOUNT of information on these anecdotal machines for many of these relevant steam description categories to be answered. I submit that steam should NOT be included as it lead NO WHERE and such machines are singular. If you can show me a successful steam motorcycle manufacturer then by all means include it. If you can't I suggest you stop increasing the noise level with unimportant trivia such as anecdotal steam velocipede acknowledgement. Krontach ( talk) 07:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
If you have a reliable source you can cite who states that they do not think steam motorcycles count as motorcycles, then you should add a citation of their opinion. The only one I know of is Cycle World's Kevin Cameron, and I've repeatedly cited his opinion on Roper steam velocipede, Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede and Daimler Reitwagen. I don't think we need to belabor that point further. It's a minority view and WP:UNDUE places limits on how much attention you give to minority views. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 16:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Is it time to include this class of engines or are we going to be technical and exclude electric because they are motors? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kellnerp ( talk • contribs) 00:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I propose that Bike-engined car be merged into Motorcycle engine; specifically into a section titled "Use in motor cars". The main text of the article seems to be mostly about racing specials and track cars; other uses could be summarized with direction to main articles at Cyclecar, Bubble car, and Microcar. The list of "common modern bike engines used in cars" could be included in the merge to the section, while the "list of production cars with motorcycle engines" could be spun off as a stand-alone list. Sincerely, SamBlob ( talk) 17:43, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
I would instead focus on cleanup: get some sources to cite, which I think could be found in the linked articles, and consider a title change, "bike" -> "motorcycle". -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 18:07, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
This article was originally created in 2005 by a US English writer, User:Bruce2, and the article kept US English until specialised was introduced in January 2010. Since then it has had a mix of US and UK spelling. MOS:RETAIN says in these cases, we "use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety." So I'm adding {{ American English}} and changing all the spelling back to US. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 05:25, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
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There needs to be a concensus on the descriptive terms used to describe motorcycle engines. For example most 4 cylinder engines are in-line fours, most Japanese four cylinder engines are transversely mounted (that is across the frame) but others like the Indian, Nimbus and BMW K100 are longitudinally mounted. All however are inline fours as opposed to horizontally opposed fours, square fours or V4s.
The usual description for a transversely monted inline twin motorcycle is parallel twin with inline twin usually being reserved for an engine layout like the Sunbeam S7/8.
Also remember geographical bias when claiming that one layout is the most common. While V-twins may be the most common twin in the US, parallel or horizontally opposed are more common elsewhere.
Actually two-stroke motorcycle engines can, and hi-performance ones do, have more displacement then cylinder size might suggest. This is due the crank-case acting as a Supercharger-like compressor before intake air is spooled, thus over-filling the cylinder with 'boost' if you will.
turbo-charged engines over-fill aswell ofcource... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.187.71.66 ( talk) 12:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Displacement is Pi times one half of the bore, squared, times the stroke. Nothing more or less. Krontach ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC).
Comment on the engine diagrams: the classic V-twin has a single crank pin shared by both cylinders, not dual crank pins as drawn. Rracecarr 00:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. The drawing is incorrect, but is there an editor watching this page? Seasalt 04:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
On the workpage I have reformatted this article with conventional section formatting instead of a table in the cylinders and configuration section. I'm not sure which one is better. Probably it's better to keep it simple, for long-term maintenance. -- Dbratland ( talk) 23:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
There has been some confusion in this article, hopefully now cleared up, about longitudinal vs. transverse. But I just wanted to state the following for the record so that this and all other motorcycle articles use the correct terminology.
A longitudinal engine is one where the crankshaft is oriented from front to back i.e. along the long axis of the bike.
A transverse engine is one where the crankshaft is oriented from left to right i.e. across the short axis of the bike.
The confusion mostly seems to arise with V-engines and flat-twin engines as people think about orientation of the cylinders, which is opposite to the crank orientation. In a v-twin or flat twin which has cylinders poking out of either side of the bike (as with Guzzi & BMW) the crank is oriented longitudinally, so this is a longitudinal engine. The typical American and Ducati v-twin configuration with one cylinder oriented towards the front and one towards the back has the crank oriented transversely, so this is a transverse engine. -- Biker Biker ( talk) 09:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Because so many sources are inconsistent about this, the safest thing is not say "transverse engine" but try to say "transverse crankshaft engine" so that it's clear you're talking about the crank. Gaetano Cocco in Motorcycle design and technology follows this practice. It's awkward, but I don't know any other solution unless WP can make a proclamation that everyone who says it the other way is officially wrong. -- Dbratland ( talk) 18:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
That is not now Wikipedia works. You don't get to just ignore sources because you disagree with them. I understand how much easier it would be if we could just decide to rationalize irrational things on our whim, but we can't. If we could do that, we could erase the difference between British and American spelling, and forget about constantly converting metric units. There are lots of Wikipedia policies that cover this sort of thing, but the most relevant might be Righting Great Wrongs and Wikipedia:Advocacy. As in, Wikipedia cannot right them. Wikipedia cannot teach the world to use the "correct" terminology. Maybe they are wrong, and we can certainly convey what the various authorities say on this subject, but we can't fix it. It is not our job to fix it. -- Dbratland ( talk) 23:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
" Japanese manufacturers are not linked to any one layout in the same way and Honda, in particular, have produced almost every possible configuration and type." who wrote this, yes Japanese manufacturers have produced alot of different ones but they are heavily linked with in-line four stroke engines, might consider changing this, maybe revising the entire paragraph cause its not very well written the way it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.175.150 ( talk) 19:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
If you are going to include steam veolcipedes then there should be an infobox for these types of engines. This should include:
And this should also be consistent with the terms used to rank Steam Locomotive engines. There are very good reasons why steam doesn't exist as a viable drive type for transport machines. One is a lack of safety. Another is lack of range. There isn't going to be a relevant AMOUNT of information on these anecdotal machines for many of these relevant steam description categories to be answered. I submit that steam should NOT be included as it lead NO WHERE and such machines are singular. If you can show me a successful steam motorcycle manufacturer then by all means include it. If you can't I suggest you stop increasing the noise level with unimportant trivia such as anecdotal steam velocipede acknowledgement. Krontach ( talk) 07:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
If you have a reliable source you can cite who states that they do not think steam motorcycles count as motorcycles, then you should add a citation of their opinion. The only one I know of is Cycle World's Kevin Cameron, and I've repeatedly cited his opinion on Roper steam velocipede, Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede and Daimler Reitwagen. I don't think we need to belabor that point further. It's a minority view and WP:UNDUE places limits on how much attention you give to minority views. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 16:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Is it time to include this class of engines or are we going to be technical and exclude electric because they are motors? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kellnerp ( talk • contribs) 00:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I propose that Bike-engined car be merged into Motorcycle engine; specifically into a section titled "Use in motor cars". The main text of the article seems to be mostly about racing specials and track cars; other uses could be summarized with direction to main articles at Cyclecar, Bubble car, and Microcar. The list of "common modern bike engines used in cars" could be included in the merge to the section, while the "list of production cars with motorcycle engines" could be spun off as a stand-alone list. Sincerely, SamBlob ( talk) 17:43, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
I would instead focus on cleanup: get some sources to cite, which I think could be found in the linked articles, and consider a title change, "bike" -> "motorcycle". -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 18:07, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
This article was originally created in 2005 by a US English writer, User:Bruce2, and the article kept US English until specialised was introduced in January 2010. Since then it has had a mix of US and UK spelling. MOS:RETAIN says in these cases, we "use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety." So I'm adding {{ American English}} and changing all the spelling back to US. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 05:25, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Motorcycle engine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:04, 6 February 2018 (UTC)