can someone expalin V6 V12 V3, what ARE THEY!!????

Answer 1

Well, with relation to cars, V-12 & V-6 are the number of cylinders, & they are in a V formation in the engine. As opposed to a flat 6, which is as it says, more flat, almost horizontal. As to V3, that is an odd number of cylinders for a car, but I guess it could be. Audi made a 5 cylinder car!

Answer 2

Several people correctly said it's the number of cylinders that a car engine contains but I only saw one person mention that the V refers to the way the cylinder is arranged, that is, in a V shape.

They used to have something called a straight 8. I think an inline 6 would be the same configuration of straight up and down rather than angled into a V. The old Triumph TR6 had an inline 6, if I remember correctly.

And when we say straight or inline, it means lined up in a row.

The V12 is another type of engine that you used to see in Jags and some really old cars.

The V3? Not sure. But, the Neon Metro has a 3 cylinder engine and it might be a V3.

Of the V type engines, I belive the V8 combination was the most common at one time.

Answer 3

In the good old days, most V configuration engines had the two rows of cylinders 90 degrees apart. These days, some (Dodge) are only 60 degrees apart to make the engine more compact. Orginally, the reason for the V configuration was to make the engine run smoother (less vibration) and when set at 90 degrees, secondary vibrations of one cylinder was cancelled out by the motion of the opposing engine. V configurations of less than 90 degrees are not as effective at cancelling out vibration (just ask any Harley rider about the old style 43 degree V twins). Inline engines have perfect primary balance but lack secondary balance and will vibrate. Opposed engines have two banks of cylinders at 180 apart, often called boxers because of the pistons are much like the punches of a boxer. Engine configuration has nothing to do with power or vibration these days. There was a V3 motorcycle engine one made, two cylinders up and one sideways but I can't remember the name of it. There was even a square four engine, basically two 2 cylinder engines set one in front of the other.

Answer 4

Engines now come in 3 configurations. Inline (ie, the cylinders are one after another in a straight line), V configuration (they are in 2 banks, half on either side), or W (there are 4 rows of pistons).

A 4 cylinder is typically an inline engine.

A V6 (or V8) has the cylinders in two banks of 3 or 4 cylinders.

A V 12 has two banks of 6 cylinders.

A W 12 has 4 banks of 3 cylinders

Volkswagon is the only company I know of with a W configuration engine.

Answer 5

The number of cylinders has nothing whatsover to do with the engine capacity.

Twin cylinder engines vary from 100cc to 5,000cc. They can be parallel (like a Triumph Bonneville), V-twin (like a Moto-Guzzi or Harley-Davidson) or flat twin (like the BMW 'R' series).

Three cylinder engines vary from 150cc to the giant 2-stroke marine diesels the size of a house. Anyone who says "There's no such thing as a V3" has obviously never heard of the Honda NS-400R - a 400cc 2-stroke V3 sports bike (two horizontal cylinders and one vertical).

Most 4 cylinder engine are 'in-line' i.e one cylinder behind the other. Back in the 1970's, the Ford Corsair had a V4 engine, which was later used in the Transit. Aerial and Suzuki have both made 'square four' engines. Four cylinder motors go from 250cc up to around 8,000cc.

Five cynder engines are actually quite unusual. However, Ford, Volvo, Audi and Mercedes Benz have all produced cars with 5 cylinder engines. Honda has also made a V5 race bike engine, that is rumoured to be in deveolpment for a road bike.

In-line 6's, V6's and flat sixes are very common configuations for sports car engines. Triumph used to make the Vitesse - a car with a six cylinder engine of just 2,000cc. Truck V6 motors go up to 12,000cc.

I'm not aware of any 7 cylinder engines (except radial aircraft engines).

Ah, the evocative sound of a V8 (or a straight-8 'blower' Bentley, for that matter!). The V8 is the epitome of the American muscle car - torquey, raw and a sound that goes directly to your primeval memory. V8's go from about 3,000cc up to several hundred litres when used in marine applications.

I'm not aware of any 9 cylinder engines (or 11 cylinder ones), except as above.

The V10 - Dodge Viper. What a car!

12 and 16 cylinder engines are the top of the tree. Either in 'flat' formation (Ferrari 512-BB), 'V' formation (Lamborghini Countach) or 'W' formation (Bugatti Veyron). A V12 is usually no smaller than 4,000cc and reached it's pinnacle in the Rolls-Royce double supercharged Merlin aero engine, as fitted to the Spitfire - all 27,000cc of it!!

Answer 6

V6 - 6 cylinders 3 on each side
V12 - 12 cylidiners 6 on each side
v8 - 8 cylinders 4 on each side
W16 - 16 cylinder in the shape of a W
v3 - never heard of it it probably inline 3 where all the cyliders on in a line

Answer 7

Good answer immediately above, but supplemental to it, the Napier "Deltic" deisel was based on a 3-cylinder, 6-piston triangular module and hence was 3, 6, 9... cyl.

They also produced the first W-Type and H-type engines with 4 cylinder banks on one crankcase..... VW group use a W12 design on its larger cars.

Answer 8

The "V" means that the bores/pistons are in a
V formation and not vertical !!!

V 6 means you have 3 cylinders on one side of the "V" and 3 cylinders on the other side of the "V"

V8 means 4 on either side.

V12 means 6 on either side, and so on

You can't have a "V" 3

Answer 9

hello, its just a nickname for the size of engines i have a v5 which is a 2.3 litre engine v6 is 4 litre v8 is 6 litre and i think v12 is about an 8 litre engine some times an engine will have more exhausts aswell to correspond the v size! hope this helped

Answer 10

Engine sizes. The V is the way the cylinders are arranged followed by the number of them.