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Originally Posted by mhn3773
hey Rc what is a parallel twin if u wouldnt mind explaining it to me..i have never head that term used before..im off to search google right now
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Think of the engine layout as "side by side" cylinders - as apposed to behind each other.
Parallel is a term often used to describe the "across the frame" layout of a twin cylinder bike engine, since the cylinders are parallel to each other... as apposed to the "inline-4" term that is popularly used to describe "across the frame" 4 cylinder bikes... (some very early bikes used a true front to back inline 4 cylinder layout - but we are talking in the early 20th century here
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The most successful V4 bikes have taken the across the frame inline 4 and pulled alternate cylinders forwards and backwards to form the V - running across the frame, as apposed to the typical longitudinal V6 or V8 layout used in cars.
The V could be anywhere from a small 45 degree angle to a wide 90 degree V.
This V may might even be placed with one bank of cylinders parallel to the ground plane, and one perpendicular - as they tried to find the optimum position.
Honda had a very successful inline-6 cylinder in the 1000cc Honda CBX about 20 years ago - Honda have often used a flat 4 - and now use a flat-6 design in a couple bikes.
During the mid-80's Honda had a very successful V3 500cc race bike, that spawned a V3 400cc street bike. Again the V is across the frame instead of longitudinal - as the few bikes (Moto-Guzzi comes to mind -as well as the pig-iron Honda CX500) that have had the V in the longitudinal orientation, have handled like pigs due to the weird harmonics that V layout induces.
I have ridden a couple of CX500's - they suck.
Although Honda have gone and used a longitudinal V4 in a few of their bikes - just to prove that with the correct balancing - they could do it.
Bikes have had pretty much every engine layout imaginable - singles, across the frame twins, V-twins, across the frame triples, V3's, inline 4's, V4's, V5's, V6's, flat 6's, a few experimental V8's and Honda's own oval pistoned V4 NR - whose layout used 2 con rods per per piston, 2 plus and 8 valves per cylinder - looking exactly like a V8 with the pistons of adjacent cylinders siamesed together to form an oval.
Suzuki even had a very succesful square 4 500cc two stroke - basically two parallel twins, with their own crank shafts geared together (Arial had a square 4 in the 1950's as well).
Yamaha also had a very good V4 2 stroke that also used 2 crank shafts.
No student of engines and motive power could NOT be interested in motorcycle engines...
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