Displacement
 

What is it? How does it work? What makes it?

Bore x Stroke x # of cylinders.

Displacement = size of your motor.

Courtesy of http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm/printable:


Displacement

The combustion chamber is the area where compression and combustion take place. As the piston moves up and down, you can see that the size of the combustion chamber changes. It has some maximum volume as well as a minimum volume. The difference between the maximum and minimum is called the displacement and is measured in liters or CCs (Cubic Centimeters, where 1,000 cubic centimeters equals a liter).

Here are some examples:

• A chainsaw might have a 40 cc engine.
• A motorcycle might have a 500 cc or a 750 cc engine.
• A sports car might have a 5.0 liter (5,000 cc) engine.

Most normal car engines fall somewhere between 1.5 liter (1,500 cc) and 4.0 liters (4,000 cc) If you have a 4-cylinder engine and each cylinder displaces half a liter, then the entire engine is a "2.0 liter engine." If each cylinder displaces half a liter and there are six cylinders arranged in a V configuration, you have a "3.0 liter V-6."

Generally, the displacement tells you something about how much power an engine can produce. A cylinder that displaces half a liter can hold twice as much fuel/air mixture as a cylinder that displaces a quarter of a liter, and therefore you would expect about twice as much power from the larger cylinder (if everything else is equal). So a 2.0 liter engine is roughly half as powerful as a 4.0 liter engine.

You can get more displacement in an engine either by increasing the number of cylinders or by making the combustion chambers of all the cylinders bigger (or both).

I see, so bassically the main avantages to haveing a larger displacemen it more power huh?

Its (pi*.5*bore^2)*stroke* number of cylinders

In simple talk... thats the volume of a cylinder * the amount of cylinders there are. Convert your units. If you do the bore and stroke in mm, you'll get a displacement in cubic mm and you'll need to divide by 1000 to get it in cc.

it's also about how you make the power.... just b/c an engine is big doesnt mean it's going to make big power. ie: Fox3 Mustang GT had 5L and rated at about 200HP, many V6's now adays are rated on that power in all types of cars. And then there are some I-4's claiming that power. Big engine should have the advantage of torque and may be easier to make more power.