Types Of Bike Engine Layouts
With time two-wheeler industry grew on a large scale. As we know majority of the motorcycles in Indian market are limited to single-cylinder engines. We all are not much exposed to the different types of engine used in motorcycle. In this blog we will tell you about different engine layouts used in bike. Although these layouts, come with their own advantages and disadvantages. Let us read about them.
Also Read : Car Engine Layout Types | Engine Layouts Explained
1. Single-cylinder
Single cylinder engines are most commonly used type. In this types of engine only a single piston does the job. This is a cost effective type of engine indeed best for small cc bikes. Higher vibrations on larger cubic capacities is the biggest disadvantage of this type. This can be easily seen on daily commuter bikes like Splendor, Platina and even Bajaj Discover 125.
2. Parallel Twin Engine
As the name suggest they have two cylinders placed parallel to each other and they share one cylinder block. The parallel twin are high performance engine used in medium and high displacement models. You can find them in the BMW F 850 GS, Kawasaki Ninja 300 and many more adventure bikes. This is not only a balance system but also smoother power delivery.
3. V-Twin Engine
This is one of the most popular layout types. Here the arrangement of the two-cylinders forms a “V”. It produce a ton of torque at low revs, but are also have a fair amount of vibrations therefore they may also need to employ balancer shafts. You can spot them in Harley Davidson and Ducati bikes.
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4. L-Twin Engine
Ducati uses a 90-degree V angle on their angled V-twin motors. Here one cylinder is nearly horizontal and the other is nearly vertical. It called a L-twin engine. Ducati made the L twin engines prominent by using them in most of their lineup.
5. Boxer Engine
A Boxer type engine is also known as flat twin engine having horizontally opposed pistons. These is the least used type in the recent years. This are one of the best balanced engine with optimal cooling. Notably they are expensive to manufacture, maintain and repair.
6. Inline-Three Engine
They are also known as Inline-triple or straight-three engine. It have three cylinder placed in a row. These are not widely used but you can find them in Yamaha MT-09 and the Triumph Street Triple.
7. Inline-four Engine
In Inline four engine all cylinders are aligned in one row. These have some of the best power-to-weight characteristics as compared to any motorcycle engine configuration. These are available in super bikes like Honda CBR650R, Benelli TNT 600i and Suzuki GSX-S750.
8. V-Four Engine
The v-four engine are another 4 cylinder engine configuration. Here two V-Twin engine are placed togather and all the cylinders share a common crankshaft. Although these are complex to built they give good performance and produce less vibration.
Also Read: Types Of Transmission System (Manual, AT, iMT, CVT, DCT) Explained
9. Straight six Engine
This is another rare type of engine layout used in bike. This engine are extremely smooth in operations and produce scads of torque. The straight six cylinder engine is used in Honda’s Gold Wing and many such bikes. This engine are very expensive and heavier.
