Inline 4

Inline-four engine has been used widely by many bike manufacturers such as BMW, MV Augusta, Triumph, etc. Some of the Inline-four engines were even used by racing teams of car manufacturer such as Peugeot, Ferrari, Maserati  in Formula 1, Grand Prix motor racing and Formula 2. Nowadays, they are used to make economical cars instead of V6 and V8 because of their fuel efficiency and low cost of production.

What is an Inline-four engine? The Inline-four engine or Straight-four is an internal combustion engine with all four cylinders. All four cylinders are mounted in a straight line along one crankshaft. The inline-four layout is a mechanically simple engine. It has a natural basic engine balance. It is smoother than one, two, and three cylinder engines but it does have a problem with a secondary balance which causes minor vibrations in a small engine. These vibrations become worse as engine size and power increase. An inline engine is less costly to produce than a V or boxer because the V and boxer will both have multiple heads and sets of valve train components and the blocks will be more complex. Reducing the number of cylinders for a given displacement (maximizing piston/cylinder size) will reduce the surface area available for heat transfer (loss) and will reduce the length sealed by piston rings. Both of these effects make a 4 cylinder engine more efficient than a 6 or 8 cylinder engine of equivalent displacement. Everything has some drawbacks. Engineering in general (especially automotive) is often about deciding between different tradeoffs. While the inline 4 cylinder engine isn't perfect it has a number of attributes which make it highly attractive and aren't outweighed by its drawbacks.