Talk:V6 engine/Archive 1 2007-2013

Alfa Romeo V6
No need to list this in the begining section of the 60 degree engines as it is not common enough. The section should only include common V6s people may run across, the Nissan VQ is better placed here...
 * This section is about V angles not common engines..and there is no need to mention these ward awards, because it doesnt count all the best egnines--&mdash; Typ932T 07:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Old comments
It's much better now. HAHAHAHAAAAAAA! But I feel skeptical about all the text related to the VW VR engines (in this article and other). IMO VW makes a good marketing job. The VR engine don't have all the pros of a V and a Straight engine, they have all the cons, but they are very compact. Making such an engine reliable requires superior design technology. Once again VW didn't pionnered this engine the first V6 on the Lancia Lambda was a narrow angle, and the front-wheel drive Lancia Fulvia that surprised everyone in rally racing in the late-60's/early-70's had a narrow-angle V4 that allowed an extroardinary good mass balance for a front-wheel drive car. Ericd

Yes: needs a more NPOV. Right now it smacks of a PR job. Tannin 15:08, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Maybe the VR series needs its own seperate page where all this can be laid out without swamping THIS page with it. Cut down the mention of it here. (or is there already an article on the things?) --Morven 22:57, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think we shoud keep someting on narrow-angle V6s and create a VR engine article. In any case this should be turned to NPOV. Ericd 23:02, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I made some changes. Does that sound better? In addition, I think this page doesn't really emphasise just how popular the V6 has become in recent years. Certainly in the USA where I now live, it seems like almost EVERYTHING now has V6 power (except for the truly large stuff that has V8s). I'm thinking of wording. How popular are V6s in Europe right now? --Morven 23:17, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This is much better but in all narrow-angle V engines "both banks share the same cylinder head" (I'm not absolutely sure about the narrow angle Cadillac V16). European cars are smaller, the straight-4s are more common. Except BMW the V6 has totally replaced the straight-6. Opel gave-up first and more recently Mercedes-Benz.

Have a look on the straight-6 article.

Ericd 00:02, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Morwen I have no time to expand it now but the article lacks a lot about the F1 1,5 L turbo V6s my develloppement aboutr the Renault engine was a step in that direction... Ericd 23:59, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ah, the Renault turbo F1 engine was developed from that? I'll see if I can find any material ...

I have a lot of references but not much time for now...

Odd-fire
I've just removed the following text:


 * When two cylinders are "removed" for a V6 variant, the firing order becomes uneven. One 90&deg; ignition is removed, so the engine fires at 90&deg;, 90&deg;, 90&deg;, and skips one 90&deg;.  This leads to a rough idle and increased stress on the engine mounts and chassis.

As far as I know, V6 engines have never been built this way. Odd-fire engines come from shared-crankpin V8 designs that have crank journals arranged at 120° between lobes, not 90°. Instead of a 90-90-180-90-90-180 pattern, odd-fire V6s fire in 90-150-90-150-90-150 pattern. --Milkmandan 03:27, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)

You're certainly rigth a V6 crankshaft with 90° lobes would generate so much vibrations that it would explode IMO. Ericd 21:42, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In the Buick 231 example, the angle-scale is written at an 30 degree interval except for 210 & 270 which differs 60 degrees. I don't grasp the subject enough to know if the seperation between the first stroke-group and the second is larger than the others, but if it is, the scale should be changed so this is obvious, because as it looks now, the stroke-groups seem evenly separated when just looking at the structure. --85.194.2.201 10:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Correct: simply removing one lobe would be disastrous. the pairs are arranged evenly with respect to each other. here's the simple rule of balance: almost everywhere amateurs write about balance, they write complete rubbish. in a basic 90° V6 with crank counterweights, mechanical balance is really, really good. the error that keeps appearing throughout this article (which i corrected to some degree, but pretty much any non-text book article on balance needs a complete rewrite) is the claim that one bank (essentially a straight 3) has a rocking couple, unlike an I4, and therefore two I3 banks cannot constitute a balanced engine. what this view is unaware of, is that a pair of cylinders at 90° approximate sinusoids at right angles, which equals circular motion that can be cancelled by counterweights on the crank. I3's are indeed unbalanced, but a counterweighted 90° V6 comprises three essentially balanced pairs, making a balanced engine. the problem with this sort of engine is that you have three cylinders 120° apart, and offset 90° the other three at 120° apart. this means it's impossible to have six even firing intervals, and you get a rough sounding exhaust note. many people think "engine smoothness" is entirely about lots of evenly spaced power strokes, when in fact it's almost entirely about mechanical balance. since mechanical imbalance increases with the square of engine speed, odd firing becomes almost irrelevant at high RPM. ever driven a flat 4? pairs fire together, unlike the I4 where cylinders fire singly and twice as often, and the sound is very throbby (i know, this isn't an example of uneven firing) ... but my experience is that the drive train feels completely smooth (with a reduction in secondary imbalance, btw). anyhoo, the "roughness" of the original fireball V6 was very unpopular and the configuration is rarely chosen by manufacturers. adding a "split pin" crank changes the phases of the cylinders, so the firing is evened up, but at the expense of some balance. long story short, manufacturers have chosen to "smooth out" V6's with complex juggling of bank angles, split pins and balance shafts, but this doesn't alter the fact that a V6 can have inherent balance even though people keep writing that this is impossible. i fully expect a non-expert to come along and wrongly edit my changes at some point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.57.184 (talk) 07:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean about editing by non-experts. Someone thinks that a 180 degree inline three will have a rocking motion (when in fact it has a vertical vibration) and that an inline 5 can't be balanced. So when I flagged the text (I know I'm not an expert) they just removed my flagging. BTW a flat 4 doesn't have pairs firing together (at least not in a 4-stroke) - the firing times are 0, 90, 360, 450. Number774 (talk) 13:15, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

History
I recently saw a print article stating that the 1954 Ford Mainliner sedan came standard with a V6 engine. I believe that this was an error, and that the engine was actually a straight 6. However, I can find nothing saying one way or the other. It would be useful for this article to include such in formation. --Wallewek 07:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You're correct, the Ford Mainline came with a 223ci (3.7L) straight 6, not a V6. I don't actually think that this article is the place to put such information (a listing of all the cars that don't have V6s?), but instead it should go on the Ford Mainline page.  Unfortunately the current Ford Mainline page is pretty terrible and primarily focuses on the Australian Customline.  I don't know enough about the car to write an article about it, but it might not be an awful idea to scrap the current one and start from scratch. TomTheHand 14:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

smallest production V6 engines
Mitsubishi Mirage's is smaller than Mazdas.That was 1.6L.--Qura 18:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * That's cool. I did not know that. Gzuckier 18:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

1.6? That's large compared to the 1000 cc DKW two-stroke V6 of 1960. // Liftarn

V angles
Does anyone have any solid references to back up the assertion that narrower than 60 degree V6's have "severe vibration problems"? I mention it only because the very next sentence mentions the VR6 which has the narrowest angle of them all, and happens to be extremely smooth without requiring any balancing shafts. It'll rev cleanly to 7500 rpms before onset of valve float. Perhaps the VR6 reference should simply be moved away from that comment, or used as an exception, like this "Narrower angle V6 engines are very compact but suffer from severe vibration problems, with the exception of Volkwagen's ultra narrow angle VR6 engine which shares more in common with an inline 6." 24.8.221.1 04:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC) ian

Odd and even firing
Might be easier to understand if someone mentioned the numbering scheme used on most V6's. E.g  1 3 5 down one bank and 2 4 6 down the other. Also, while the convention is to always start the firing order with 1, it adds some confusion. Easier to understand the odd fire order for instance if you start at 6. 6-5 4-3  2-1  24.8.221.1 04:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC) ian

Ferrari and Alfa Romeo V6 engines
The whole section about "The 246 block found its way into Alfa Romeo's in the 1970s" and "strengthened the long-standinig relationship between Alfa and Ferrari", seems wrong as it stands, so I've placed a tag on it - Ferrari and Alfa Romeo were not partners at that stange, they were competitors. The dino V6 and the original alfa V6 (from the 1970's) were quite different; Ferrari: DOHC per cylinder bank vs Alfa: SOHC per cylinder bank, Ferrari: 65° vs Alfa: 60°, Ferrari: Dry Sump. Does anyone have any evidence they even collaborated on the design? -- Xagent86 (Talk | contribs) 20:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Further unsourced statements concerning Alfa Romeo V6
There appears to have been new statements added about the Alfa Romeo V6: "and is in fact either of the same capacity or an enlarged development of the Ferrari Dino V6". So I've added the tag next to this statement, which appears higly doubtful, however I feel the correct thing is to remove these doubtful statements soon. To recap, comparing Ferrari Dino 246 GTB/GTS 2.4L V6 with Alfa Romeo 2.5L V6 from the Alfa 6 and the GTV6 from the 1980s.


 * Engine block: Cast iron (Dino) / Aluminium alloy (Alfa)
 * Vee angle: 65 degrees (Dino) / 60 degrees (Alfa)
 * Bore x Stroke: 92.5 x 60.0 mm (Dino) / 88.0 x 68.3 mm (Alfa)
 * Engine capacity: 2418 cc (Dino) / 2491 cc (Alfa)
 * Camshafts: DOHC (Dino) / SOHC (Alfa)
 * Cam drive: Dual timing chain (Dino) / Toothed cambelt (Alfa)

Note that both bore and stroke are different... if we are to believe this theory about them being based on the same design, if it were based on the same engine, why change both bore and stroke for a capacity increase of less than 100 cc, why change to a 60° design if the 65° is working well and why change from alloy (Dino 206), to cast iron (Dino 246) to alloy (Alfa V6).

The other interesting thing about the original Alfa Romeo V6 (used in Alfa 6 and GTV6), is that it used a SOHC per cylinder bank, with the inlet valves directly operated by the single camshaft, and the exhaust valves operated by a unique system of a small pushrod (driven from the same cam as the inlet valves) and rocker arm. This gives the advantage of allowing a near central sparkplug location, without using a DOHC design. Ferrari never used this system on any engine.

While it is true that when Fiat took ownership of Alfa Romeo in 1986, there was greater information sharing between Fiat, Ferrari, Lancia and Alfa Romeo... the Dino was a car of the 1960s and early 1970s and the Alfa 6 entered production in 1979. During the 1970s, Alfa Romeo was not only competing against Ferrari in sports car racing (Group 6 prototypes), Alfa was also providing flat-12 engines to the Brabham F1 team who were competing against Ferrari, so it is highly unlikely the two companies would be sharing designs. --Xagent86 (Talk | contribs) 05:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

One other small thing about the V6 from Alfa is that it first appeared in the Alfa Sei (6), not the GTV6. I'll edit it correctly in the article now 196.2.124.251 22:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

V6 racing engines
Unless we agree that the only race cars are open wheeled the article is in error to credit Ferrari with the introduction of the V6 to racing. In 1952 Lancia began development of an all out sports racing car. This led to the D 20, powered by a 60 degree quad cam V6 displacing 2962cc and putting out 217bhp@6500rpm. The car made its debut by placing third in the 20th running of the Mille Miglia in April 1953 and proved its worth three weeks later by winning the Targa Florio. Further developement led quickly to the D23, D24 and and ultimately, with different casting and dry sump lubrication the 3.8 liter 295bhp D25. The D24's took first and second (and a D23 third) in the 1953 Carrera Panamericana and first in the 1954 Mille Miglia. I'd be willing to edit the section in the article on V6 engines but am a little unsure as to what to do with the Dino section. It's good info, just the opening remark in error. B20s 22:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

What is a "flying arm"?
It's not in Wikipedia, and not in Google, at least on a quick scan. Phranger (talk) 10:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a weird thingy you find in the crankshafts of 60 degree V6s with four main bearings. I've never heard of it before, either, but the reference I used (Nunney) called it a flying arm. According to him, it "can be likened to a crankweb that does not connect with a main journal". I don't know of any other name for it, so who am I to disagree? Nunney is British, so it could be a Britishism.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 02:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

V6 engine on US light truck in early 50's (?)
I distinctly remember finding (maybe five years ago) a Web page about "the earliest" US commercial V6, which went into a short-cab delivery van. The engine was at the same level as the driver, and an inline 6 would have been tough to fit.

This had a crankshaft with 6 separate throws (short pins) and 7 main bearings. If I recall the angle was 90º, and vibration was held to be tolerable for a truck.

Probably GMC. 50, 51 or 52. May have been GM's (or Ford's) first short-cab. Definitely not the 1959 pickup engine currently mentioned as the earliest US commercial v6.

Phranger (talk) 10:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Bussone Sei
In the racing section, the term "Bussone Sei" is mentioned as meaning "Busso's Little Six". While I don't speak Italian, I always thought the -one suffix meant "large" or "big". I.e., shouldn't "Bussone Sei" be transliterated as "Busso's Large Six" instead? TorW (talk) 11:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Balance and smoothness
I'm not an automotive engineer, and I don't know enough about V6 to know what it should say. But part of the balance and smoothness section is plainly wrong. It claims that any inline engine with an odd number of cylinders will have a rocking motion. Even a 180-degree crank three - as found in many small cars, quite commonly in Europe and I know the 1.0 Geo Metro in the US - doesn't have any rocking because it is symmetrical along the crank. A five cylinder engine is quite smooth - certainly more than a four, although not as good as a six. In the second paragraph it goes on to talk about uneven firing patterns being a problem - but any V8 owner will know that is complete rubbish. A V8 could be built with a 180-degree crank, and have an even firing pattern - but at the expense of loss of balance. The 90 degree crank has an uneven firing pattern, but better balance, and that's what they all use. Please someone who inderstands fix it! Number774 (talk) 20:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Twice someone with an IP address and no Wiki account has deleted markers I have placed around dubious statements, with no justification for their edits. So this time I've added a "dubious" tag instead that links here. He (probably!) seems to have an idea that engines with odd numbers of cylinders are always unbalanced. I'd ask you to look at VW/Audi inline 5 cylinder engines, which actually balance quite well, and think about the V10 engines now found in some top end cars. And think about the case of a 90 degree V6, which can have zero primary imbalance (as the article says, V-twins cancel that out) even though the firing timings are uneven. I don't even know if anyone makes a 90 degree V6, and I do not feel qualified to sort this section out.Number774 (talk) 15:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The Straight-five engine is unbalanced. Every Straight-three engine "rocks".  --Dana60Cummins (talk) 18:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The three has two choices, a 120 degree crank and a 180 degree crank. In the case of the 180 there is a vertical primary imbalance, but no rocking moment. I've tweaked some minor text there as well to reflect the wide use of 180 degree triples in small cars (such as the one my wife owns, and which jumps up and down but doesn't rock. Perhaps it's a punk?). Sorry, but I'm putting the dubious tag back.Number774 (talk) 13:16, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * A afterthought - V-Twin engines are pretty good, and they have an odd number of cylinders in each bank!Number774 (talk) 13:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The V6 is an inherently imbalanced because of the odd number of cylinders in each bank. Think about what happens when only one piston is coming up versus the other pair. This is why V6 engines need thrust bearings. Engineers have come up with ways to make the engine more refined. Don't confuse refinement with inherent imbalance. Or, at least don't confuse the reader and conflate imbalance and refinement. GM and MB have 90 degree V6s that they sell (720/90 = 8, not 6). My point is that the article should correctly state that the V6 is inherently imbalanced, but that engineers have mitigated some of those unequal forces through techniques like balance shafts, the split-pin crank, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.238.240.237 (talk) 16:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The people who have been editing this article apparently don't understand V6's, which is understandable because it took automotive engineers half a century or more to figure them out. Unlike the 90 degree crossplane V8, any V6 layout is inherently unbalanced, so the implementations vary from pretty good (the Mercedes V6's) to just plain awful (the Buick "odd-fire" V6). Both Mercedes and eventually Buick had to use split crankpins and balancing shafts in their 90 degree V6's to smooth them out. The current Mercedes is a 60 degree V6, which doesn't need balancing shafts. However, the Mercedes V6 will never be able to achieve the turbine-like smoothness of the inherently-balanced BMW in-line six.


 * All engines with an odd number of cylinders are inherently unbalances, which is why you see so few of them. The Metro Geo 1.0 three had a balancing shaft to smooth out its inherent vibration, which is why it was so smooth. The problem with a balancing shaft is that it costs almost as much as adding a cylinder, so most manufacturers just add a cylinder. The fives also need balancing shafts to eliminate vibrations, although engineers can mess around with crankshaft balancers and counterweights to make them somewhat better. Again, most manufacturers just add a sixth cylinder. I don't know what Audi does with its five, but whatever it does, it will never be as smooth as the BMW in-line six. Most manufacturers just go with the 60 degree V6 layout, which is relatively simple without balance shafts and can be made smooth enough for most practical purposes, which is to say that they are not trying to play in the same ballpark as BMW and Porsche. Don't start editing the "balance and smoothness" section unless you understand why that is so. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

2005 Nissan Altima 2.5 v6
fuel system check? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.143.98.218 (talk) 22:42, 17 March 2014 (UTC)