Talk:Four-cylinder engine

Proposed article
I think we should have an article on four-cylinder engines, giving an overview of the various configurations.

This has been particularly inspired by recent comments in a discussion of the naming of the straight-four engine article, and my observation that this information is in Wikipedia already but is not always easy to find. An alternative would be to create a category:four cylinder engines or similar, or a list of four-cylinder engines, but the overview article seems the way to go for several reasons.

First and most important, the category or list doesn't give the opportunity to link to the depth of information I'd like.

Secondly, there's been some reluctance to use categories for this level of detail, see Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 27. Andrewa (talk) 20:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles on non-I4 four-cylinder engines include Ariel Square Four, Brough Superior Golden Dream, Suzuki RG500 and of course Flat-4 and V4 engine and articles linked from these various pages. Andrewa (talk) 20:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep as dab page, not a list or article. Four cylinders is not a general concept. It is a number of cylinders. When deciding on an engine design, goals like torque vs rpm curves, smoothness, weight, complexity and cost are primary considerations, but choosing four cylinders doesn't resolve these questions. Whether it is an inline, flat, V or U is going to make a drastic difference, as will crank angle and firing order. In other words, a general article on four cylinder engines is going to have very little to say except "well, that depends on whether you mean an inline 4, flat 4, V-4, etc".I understand why this looks like it shouldn't be a dab page, but in fact a dab page entirely appropriate. I-4s are as different from V-4s as V-twins are from singles. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:34, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, perhaps this title should redirect to Reciprocating engine or Internal combustion engine. Consider the plight of the poor reader who is looking at an article that says "This car was powered by a four cylinder engine."  If she clicks on that link, it takes her to this disambiguation page that just tells her there are various types of engines that have four cylinders, but no clue whatsoever as to which one might power the car that the previous article was describing.  An article that at least describes various types of engine designs would seem to be more useful to the reader in this situation than this stark disambiguation page. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:02, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That is exactly the situation this dab page works best for. "This car was powered by a four cylinder engine." Being linked to this page underscores the fact that the reader has not been given enough information at the source page, and they are stuck with an ambiguity. It's impossible to help them other than to make them aware they were not given enough information. One of the problems with just redirecting to Internal combustion engine is that nowhere on that page are links to the four types of inline four engines. But linking to Internal combustion engine as the primary topic would be helpful, as per Manual of Style (disambiguation_pages). So it would say:"A four cylinder engine is a type of internal combustion engine.Four cylinder engine may refer to:"--Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * We can't link directly to a disambiguation page. How would you fix the link R'n'B mentioned? In many situations, the information simply isn't available. This should be an article that first explains what a four-cylinder is, and then has sections (each with their own main hatnote) with a summary of each type. -- Ja Ga  talk 16:58, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The only solution to that problem is to fix the linking article. I don't believe it is possible for the type of engine in any notable vehicle to be unavailable. There are numerous articles that are poorly researched and left in a confusing state by Wikipedia editors, and there is no quick and easy way to repair that. A dab page cannot fix a flawed article, but it can help raise the issue. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:12, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's a list of links needing fixing. Care to give it a shot? -- Ja Ga  talk 18:39, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

This needs to go back to a dab page if sources don't materialize
There's no harm in the current state of this page, but at some point you're going to have to admit that you don't have any sources that discuss "four cylinder engines". Any source you find is going to have a chapter or heading called "Four cylinder" or something like that, and then immediately break that down into one or more of the actual configurations. You can't have an instance of a four cylinder (or any engine other than a one cylinder) without settling on a cylinder arrangement, and the arrangements are radically different beasts.But good luck. Maybe somebody can make this work as an article; more power to anyone who can. But after a little while it should go back to a dab page. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Categorize article?
I stumbled upon this stub, and couldn't decide whether to expand the article and add sources, or define it as a disambig page. Which would be better? Bookster451 (talk) 20:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with the way it is now? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:09, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's classified as an article, and this "article" is a stub. If it's kept as an article, it needs to be expanded.  Bookster451 (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It should be a dab page, like Six-cylinder engine and Three-cylinder engine. It's ambiguous, and there's nothing the article can say about it that isn't true of all reciprocating engines. You need to know both the number of cylinders and the configuration in order to describe the engine, and any link that doesn't resolve that needs to be fixed at the origin.It might make sense to put Three-cylinder engine, Six-cylinder engine, Four-cylinder engine, 12-cylinder engine into a category like Category:Engines by number of cylinderss, all as dab pages. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)