Boxer engine 1
Why has a boxer engine always developed more charm for me than an in-line engine? Of course, if you watched the first assembly of a combustion engine at VW.
Two super clean half housings for crankshaft and camshaft, with it starts what the in-line engine can't offer. Even then, it was made of aluminum alloyed with magnesium. But the two also had to be tightly joined.
An in-line engine doesn't know anything like that. An oil pan will come under it later and that's it. With a sealing, of course. But who would ever think of squeezing a seal between two crankcase halves that support the bearing
shells of the crankshaft with an accuracy of a hundredth of a millimeter?
And then they protrude out of the housing, the connecting rods, they are lifted in sequence and must fall in a characteristic way, not too quickly and not too slowly. Oddly enough, the fact that the crankshaft is still turning gets a
little less attention.
Only then the cylinders come, possibly with the pistons already pre-assembled, i.e. with the piston rings slided in. Only the piston pins protrude laterally and have to be connected to the protruding small connecting rod eyes.
An in-line engine is almost ready for operation once the pistons have been installed. With the boxer engine, at least with the VW Beetle, the shaky matter is only over when the cylinder heads are mounted. In which their
preparation is similar to that of the in-line engine.
The result is very different for the two engines. The shape of the short engine looks more organic on the Boxer. It is probably also a bit more compact due to the individual crank drives. In terms of the center of gravity, the
other
can only compete in a lying position.
But the only engine, which incidentally was designed by Porsche and which could have been used in a significant number of cars, was ultimately rejected by VW as the successor to the Beetle. That was right, because why
should such an engine be located under the rear seat?
Certainly, an engine in a normal car with a large tailgate belongs at the front. This was then also accepted at VW. But for reasons of cost and because a suitable candidate already existed, they opted for an in-line engine.
Now I would ask you to imagine a transverse in-line engine at the front and a longitudinal boxer engine always related to the crankshaft. Which construction would you find more aesthetic looking from above?
And if the camera then pans to the side, how close above the engine can the front hood begin? The smaller VW in-line engine was also tilted forward. Of course, fuel injection hadn't caught on yet, otherwise not even thick
carburetors would have bothered left and right.
Because the equipment with only one carburetor is the sticking point of the boxer compared to the in-line engine.Here it needs one on each side and they tend to work against each other instead of with each other. It's a pity
that the comprehensive multi-point injection came too late for the boxer engine.
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