Talk:Flat-four engine

There is another vehicle i found on the web called "Tatra" czech-made voehicle, late 1920's. Possibly the oldest flat four known. ~soob792~ 16:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

BFG motorcycle with a citroen flat-four is indeed the first motorcycle. Nesselsdorfer 1902 made the first flat four for a car, 5.9 liters.Also, the reasoning written for why flat fours have disappeared is quite absurd and no doubt made up out of thin air.

To add my own "out of thin air", the engine was too darn good for the flawed inline equivalent to not create competition was unfair business practice, regardless of the benefit to people.

I am currently making a website describing the history of this engine as a hobby. nothing but facts, will reveal its address in due time.

started in 1902....in a place that wasn't even its own country yet. That investigated may be a bizarre change on where porsche/vw actually came from.Stay tuned....

~soob792~ 23:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

H4 engines
The H-4 engine is so closely related to the flat four it makes perfect sense to include reference like this to it:


 * "Though not a true flat-4, a similar engine was made in which one pair of cylinders was mounted above the others — an H-4 pattern. Here are two of these motorcycles:


 * "A small number of shaft drive opposed four 1000cc Brough Superior Golden Dreams with stacked cylinders were built in Nottingham, England in 1938 and 1939.


 * "The first Wooler opposed four, of 1949, had stacked cylinders in the H-4 pattern. In 1955, Wooler changed to a flat four."

However, "SamBlob" has deleted the references twice. Apparently he or she doesn't like it and will continue to delete it if it is reinserted. Fine. He or she is wrong-headed on this matter. So who am I to get into a editorial war with him or her? R69S (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Change the name
"Flat-4" is too limiting because it leaves out a closely related layout, the H-4, and attempts to refer to this design have been repeatedly deleted. Opposed four engines would be a better name for this article. Flat-4 should be merged into opposed four engines. R69S (talk) 22:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Opposed four engines is a bad title in English. It would be better if you discuss the options before creating other aritcles. - BillCJ (talk) 23:01, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * What would you suggest? It would be easily changed.  R69S (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The H-4 is an example of an H engine and should go under that category. An H engine can be viewed as a pair of flat engines geared together, so the H-4 is really a pair of flat-twins with a common output. The manufacturer probably arrived at the design by gearing a couple of off-the-shelf flat-twins together, since it is otherwise a very complicated and expensive way to build a four-cylinder engine. The phrase opposed four can be taken to mean it is an opposed piston engine, which is an entirely different breed of engine. The flat-4 is one of a series including the flat-twin, flat-6, flat-8... all the way up to the flat-16. So, I think flat-4 is the best choice for this article.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This is my 1st post, not sure what I'm doing yet, so I don't want to chop up pages strIght away, but here I go in Talk: Flat is a REALLY bad description to me because there have been '180°V Flat engines' in the distant past, I would like us all to use 'Boxer-2 -4 -6 -12' as used in BMW Motorbikes, VW & Subarus, various Honda Motorbikes, Porsches & Ferraris. Some people are using 'horizontally-opposed' to describe Boxers, but horizontally-opposed engines have TWO Pistons in the one bore such as Commer's TS3 or a Napier Delta. Regards. Tubby.Lunchbox (talk) 10:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

File:ULPower UL260i.jpg
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Firing order
Nice animated diagram. However, the firing order of the quintessential flat-four, the VW air-cooled engine, is 1-4-3-2, not 1-2-3-4. Sca (talk) 14:57, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Possible Original Research ?
This article contains much good information, but various sections lack citations (some more than others). From reading it I get the impression that the article seems to contain original research (in part at least) 46.69.29.80 (talk) 18:34, 23 December 2023 (UTC)