Engine configuration is an engineering term for the layout of the major components of a reciprocating piston internal combustion engine. These components are the cylinders and crankshafts in particular but also, sometimes, the camshaft(s).
Many apparently 'standard' names for configurations are historic, arbitrary, or overlapping. For example, the 180° V engine is so named because the crankshaft is related to a V engine more closely than it is related to other opposed-piston engines such as the boxer. Others would consider it a flat engine because of its shape.
The names W engine and rotary engine have each been used for several unconnected designs. The H-4 and H-6 engines produced by Subaru are not H engines at all, but boxer engines.
Read more about Engine Configuration: Categorisation By Piston Motion
Famous quotes containing the word engine:
“There is a small steam engine in his brain which not only sets the cerebral mass in motion, but keeps the owner in hot water.”
—Unknown. New York Weekly Mirror (July 5, 1845)