What Is Layout of Engine?
Posted: 2015-06-05 03:46:02 Hits: 1772
Engine is the most important part on automobiles. The layout of engine has great influences on performance of automobiles. In terms of sedans, the layout of engine is classified into front engine, middle engine and rear engine. Most automobiles use front engine. Middle engine and rear engine are only used by sports cars.
Front engine
Front engine means that the engine is located before the front axle. Front engine simplifies the structure of transmission and drive axle. Particularly for mainstream front-wheel drive automobiles, engine transmits power directly to the front wheels, leaving out the long drive shaft. It not only reduces power transmission losses, but also declines complexity and failure rate of transmission mechanism greatly.
What's more, because of engine in front of driver, the engine can protect the driver form shocking and improve security in frontal crash.
Middle engine
The engine is between front and back axle. Generally, cockpit is located in front or behind of engine. It can be said that middle-engine automobiles must be rear wheel drive or four wheel drive.
When automobiles turn, every part on automobiles moves outside the bending due to inertia. Engine has the highest weight. So applied force of engine on body is vital to steering system when automobiles in corner. Feature of middle engine is that put the engine having the largest inertia in the center of car so that distribution of automobile weight can be closed to ideal balance. In general, only those supercar and sports cars which in pursuit of driving pleasure adopt middle engine.
However, middle engine also has disadvantages. Because of engine in the middle, carriage is quite narrow, so it cannot be equipped with more seats. The noise is large for driver too closed to engine. But those people who pursue of driving pleasure do not care about this. Even some are willing to enjoy engine roaring.
Rear engine
The most pure engine is that the engine is behind back axle, such as motor buses. Only a few automobiles use rear engine. Porsche 911 is the most representative, so is Smart.
