Both the inline four engines and the boxer four engines are widely used today and a lot of the major brands make cars carrying these beasts. However, these two engines have their respective differences, and there are a whole lot of them. First of all, you have to look at the forces and moments in the movement of the clips in both engines. While the piston strokes are a bit shifted up (differing in the last two strokes), the forces in the boxer engines are cancelled out because the pistons are firing in each other`s direction.
However, this is not the case with the inline engines because the pistons are all simply pointing downwards, meaning all the force goes down and a vibration is created because of this. Another huge difference between the inline four and the boxer four engines is their profile – while the boxer four engines have a low and wide profile, the inlines have a tall and narrow profile. This is why the inline four is winning out as well, even thought the design of the boxer is more efficient, energy wise.
This is because of maintenance reasons – when you want to do some picking around, change your sparkplugs or literally anything else in the engine, it`s far easier to do it on the inline engines than the boxers because everything is up top and easy to access, while the boxer is way too complicated and you`ll probably end up disassembling half the car. The conclusion of this video? Know what you want and be aware of harder maintenance risks, even if it`s the cooler option!
Now, what`s the difference between I4, I6, V6 or V8 engines!
