A V16 engine is a V engine with 16 cylinders. Engines of this number of cylinders are uncommon in automotive use.
A V16 engine is perfectly balanced regardless of the V angle without requiring counter-rotating balancing shafts which are necessary to balance Straight-4 and odd number of cylinder inline engines or counterweighted crankshaft like the 90° V8. In addition angles of 45° and 135° vees give an impulse every 45°, so are optimal solutions, for even-firing and non-split bearing crankshaft journals.
V16 engines are rarely used in automobiles because V8s or V12s of the same displacement produce just as much power, but are much less expensive to manufacture and maintain. The few V16s that have been produced were used in high-end luxury and high-performance automobiles due to their smoothness (low vibration).
Today, the most common applications for V16 engines are railroad locomotives, marine craft, and stationary power generators.
Famous quotes containing the word engine:
“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is perfect, the engineer is nobody. Every new step in improving the engine restricts one more act of the engineer,—unteaches him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)