Talk:V12 engine

message: Are "V" engines really smoother than their in-line counterparts? I thought the real reason for V engines is to make the engine half as long as a similar inline engine. Straight 8s were made in the past, but it needed a really long bonnet to fit one. At the time, it was considered that they were at least at smooth as V-8s. I guess a straight-12 would be infeasible for most applications since it would just be too long.
::The response is no. With less than 12 cylinders all V engines are tricky to balance. The minimal configuration to get perfect balance is a straight-6. Straight-4, V6 and V8 are disbalanced.
:::Something like a straight-48 will run smoother than a V12. But I think there is no obvious advantage for a V12 with good angle over an straight-12. I unsure but I think the russian have built an straight-12 for aicraft use.
At the small end, V-twins tend to run very rough, probably even more so than a straight twin. Their main advantage seems to be in allowing more cooling air to the cylinders, in motorcyle use.
::All twins run rough except boxers engines. An Harley engine is really disbalanced. I believe a 90° V-twin can have a good (but imperfect) balance.
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V16 are  the smoothest !
::Less than straight-16s or V24s :-)
:::Other than being shorter, V engines are much stiffer than in-line engines, and the crankshaft and camshaft(s) suffer much less flex at high RPM. This becomes important once an engine has more than about 6 cylinders. In fact, there were external engine braces sold for some of the passenger car straight-8s to prevent crankshaft breakage. Many of the racing straight-8s took the camshaft drive off the middle of the crankshaft rather than the end, and some took the final drive off the middle as well, because otherwise crankshaft and camshaft twist would put the back cylinders badly out of time with the front cylinders. A straight-12 would be a nightmare to design to prevent block, crankshaft and camshaft flex. A V8 doesn't have these problems and can be put in perfect primary and secondary balance using a cross-plane crankshaft and counterweights, so there's no point in using a straight-8 in an automobile and never was. However, a V12 is adequately stiff, can be much smoother than an 8 of any configuration because of the triple overlap of the power strokes, and doesn't need crankshaft counterweights, which is why it was used in so many WWII fighter aircraft. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Smoothness

message: We separate the N and the m because they are different units, just like the lbf and the ft in the English units.  A "full stop" looks clumsy; it might have made sense in British English when they used the middot as a decimal point, but that practice has pretty much fallen by the wayside in the past couple of decades.
The often recommended modern practice is to accomplish this separation of the unit symbols with either a space or a centered dot, not with a hyphen (which is usually considered acceptable for the spelled out words when they are used rather than the symbols), not with an asterisk, and not a dot on the line.
*Wikipedia SI#SI writing style
*Wikipedia torque
*The U.S. national standards laboratory, NIST Guide for the use of the International System of Units (SI), section 6.1.5 Unit symbols obtained by multiplication, referring to American National Standard for Metric Practice, ANSI/IEEE Std 268-1992 (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, NY, October 1992).  
*George Sudikatus, Metrics the Right Way, rule 12.
*BIPM, SI brochure, section 5.3
*The U.K.'s national measurement laboratory, National Physical Laboratory, Units of Force and Torque
*Usage example from Transport Canada: 
*American Society for Testing and Materials, Standard for Metric Practice, E 380-79, ASTM 1979:
**3.4.1.4 The use of the same name for units of force and mass causes confusion.  When the non-SI units are used, a distinction should be made between force and mass, for example, lbf to denote force in gravimetric engineering units and lb for mass.
*Wikipedia pound-force, pound (mass)
P.S.:  If a space is used in .html (as in Wikipedia), make it a hard space   so the units aren't separated from each other. Separating the number from the units with a hard space is sometimes desirable as well, but that isn't always necessary. 
Gene Nygaard 16:05, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Separation and identification of component symbols in units of measure

message: How could the move up to V16s be reminicent of something that occurred after it?  Possibly it was a precursor to them.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.71.9.48 (talk) 22:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Horsepower wars of the 60s

message: While many manufacturers are mentioned in various sections of the article, I would like to see a section just listing who they are, and the model engines (perhaps with dates, specifications, etc?) that they made.  I was surprised not to see anything about the Falconer engine here; it was the reason I elected to read the article in the first place.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Merek (talk • contribs) 15:59, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Manufacturers

message: I want to know if Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer and Testarossa's engine is F-12 or V-12. LG4761 (talk) 12:09, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: They're both the flat 12. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Its 180 degree V12, also called as flat12 but not boxer  -->Typ932 T·C 16:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer and Testarossa's engine

message: "It was possibly the last gasoline engine used in heavy trucks in the U.S.". 
International Harvester used the gasoline Red Diamond series up to 1974. 108.173.92.65 (talk) 04:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Truck V-12s

message: I understand that 60° and 180° angles between the cylinder banks are natural for a V12 engine, because only two pistons are at TDC simultaneously. Only one of the two cylinders ignite while the other is in transition from exhaust to intake stroke. But if the angle is 120° then four pistons are at TDC simultaneously. The torsional vibrations would be as good/bad as with a 120° V6, not better. That could be avoided by designing an unconventional crank shaft, but what would happen to the other vibrations then? ——Nikolas Ojala (talk) 13:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You're missing the point that a 120° V12 could still have a 6-throw crankshaft with 60° between throws, and only 2 pistons at TDC simultaneously. They would just be a different pair of pistons than a 60° V12. Actually, any angle of V12 is in primary and secondary balance since it runs like two inline sixes on the same crankshaft, so the choice of 60°, 120°, or 180° is just to achieve an even firing order without using a split-pin crankshaft. If you did use a split-pin crankshaft you could build a V12 with any angle you wanted. A 90° V12 with a split-pin crankshaft would be somewhat smoother than a 90° V8 with a crossplane crankshaft. Even a 120° V12 with a 120° firing interval and 4 pistons at TDC simultaneously would be much smoother than a 120° V6 because the first order vibrations of the two halves of the engine would offset each other and it would run like two inline sixes running in sync on the same crankshaft. That would be a weird way to design an engine, though. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  120 degrees angle between cylinder banks 

message: I propose the utilization of SI units ONLY in all technical articles of Wikipedia.
No more cubic inches but LITERS. No more hp but kW. No more foot-pounds but Nm (Newton-meters).
It's time to let go the Imperial system with its absurd and obsolete units.Tiago65 (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Units of measurement 

message: Mercedes-Benz C140 with V12 engine has both "600 SEC" and "CL 600" names.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.69.41.138 (talk) 17:39, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Postwar V12 production cars" 

message: I'm fine with using "V12" throughout the article for the sake of consistency (although I prefer V-12) but I debate that "V-12" is "rarely" used. That is the way I am most familiar with seeing it. I-4, H-6, V-8, V-12, W-8, etc. If this is less common than WITHOUT the hyphen, okay, but I don't think "rarely" is the word. AnnaGoFast (talk) 02:09, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  V12 vs V-12