What does a liter class engine mean?

Question

I have had this question for a long time, can I assume that a 1000 CC engine is able to hold a liter (1L) of water content?

Please let me know if my understanding is correct, so I can understand more....

Thanks in advance..

Answer 1

The 1000cc is the displacement of the engine. That means the total volume of all combustion chambers which is the area of all the cylinders times the length of the piston travel in the cylinder. Here is a picture of what that means:

This image comes directly from Wikipedia.

In the image the orange region shows the volume measured by the displacement.

Engine displacement may be measured in cubic centimeters (cc) or liters (L), but it has nothing to do with how much liquid the engine can hold. I hope that helps!

Answer 2

There are three common units used when measuring engine displacement. The two you've found are cubic centimeters (cc) and liters (L). There are 1000cc in a L so conversion between the two is fairly straightforward.

Smaller engines are often measured in cc because it is awkward to talk about your .205L engine - instead you would refer to it as a 205cc engine. Once you have more than 1000cc it is often customary to switch to L as the unit of measure so my Volkswagen Jetta has a 2.0L TDI rather than a 2000cc and my sister's Mitsubishi Mirage has a 1.2L 3 cylinder engine rather than a 1200cc.

US automakers tend to use a combination of cubic inches and liters as a measure of displacement. The Ford Mustang sports a 302cid V8 engine which was also denoted as a 5.0L engine. The Chrysler 440cid V8 engine found in the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda displaced 7.2L. There are approximately 61 cubic inches in a liter so were my Mazda 2.3L (which is actually 2261cc - rounding!) engine found in a Ford Escort it might be denoted as having 138cid.

The other thing you ask about is the configuration of the engine. V6 refers to an engine where there are 6 cylinders arranged with three on each side, forming a V shape as you look front to back. V8, V10, and V12 are similar, only the number of cylinders differ. This is contrasted with an inline cylinder arrangement such as the Mazda L4 engine which has 4 cylinders arranged vertically in a row, or the Chrysler slant 6 engine which has 6 cylinders arranged in a row but slanted at a 30° angle from vertical. There are other engine arrangements such as the flat 6 where cylinders are arranged opposite each other (see the boxer engine) and the wankel rotary engine (which doesn't even have cylinders).

Answer 3

Liter Class is a Reference from the FIM and AMA Superbike Series

The term liter class was popularized in 1976 with the inception of the AMA Superbike Championship. The class has a 1000cc displacement limit and the term 'liter class' as slang for the 1000cc Superbike championship was born.

Later, the class was reduced in displacement for safety reasons and was later changed back to four cylinder 1000cc displacement engines in 2005 along with the FIM Supberbike Championship during the same era.

The term 'liter class' has stuck in motorcycling and has become synonymous with inline four cylinder 1000cc motorcycles.

To answer your question.

What does a liter class engine mean?

It's etymological roots begin in motorcycling in reference to 1000cc displacement four cylinder motorcycle engines.

References

Answer 4

If you want the mathematical answer, you can calculate using this formula:

total displacement = (# of cylinders) × [(1/2 bore)² × π] × stroke

If you remember your high-school algebra courses, you will recall that the units act in the same way as the numbers. If you take the aforementioned equation and substitute in just units, you come up with:

cm³ = (1) × [(cm)² × (1)] × cm

The 1's represent whole numbers with no units. (pi, # of cylinders)

Then to convert cm³ (cc's) to litres:

litres = cm³ ÷ 1,000