Would it be impractical to have a longitudinally mounted V6 motor in a front wheel drive vehicle? I realize that it would require a front differential and some energy would be lost as the rotation has to change direction 90 degrees, but they sure would be a lot easier to work on.
The old Eagle Premier was front drive with longitudinal V6 engine, as were the Chrysler LH front-drive models that were based on that platform. I'm sure there must have been others, particularly European models. (The Eagle Premier was essentially a Renault 25 modified for the American market.)
Thank you for your response. I just miss the longitudinal orientation. Even though I am a lightweight mechanically compared to most on this forum, at least I used to be able to change the spark plugs on my own.
it's just much, much cheaper to put the crankshaft inline with the axle.
Also the cabin would have to sit higher to make room to stuff the transmission underneath. I'm sure this is part of the reason why it's usually done with body-on-frame vehicles, i.e. trucks
Good points. Thanks for your response. I just miss being able to work on a longitudinal mounted engine even as a lightweight diy’er.
I'm pretty sure you need a 60⁰ angle for the V.
That's an angle that provides for naturally even firing but there have been other angles used for V6 engines. 90 degrees was popular early on in the U.S. because a V6 could be made by removing two cylinders from a V8 and produced by the same tooling. (The GM 3.8 V6 is like this, it was an early 1960s design.) This resulted in a rough, odd-firing engine, though GM ultimately tamed it using a split-pin crankshaft to even out the firing impulses.
There have also been V6 engines with very narrow angles where both banks can share the same cylinder head, such as the Volkswagen "VR6".
The most compact engine is a V6.
A V4 is even more compact but that was never a popular configuration. Ford developed a V4 for its stillborn 1962 Cardinal front-drive compact that became the Ford Taunus in Germany. The Ford V4 engine also found its way into Saabs when that company finally moved away from two-stroke engines in the 1960s.
I knew there are other angles of the V6, I was more getting at the mainstream of things, lol. V4s are inherently unstable for a number of reasons, they're also not as efficient for the added complexity. You get the best bang for your buck, pun intended, lol.
The most compact engine is a V6. You only need the equivalent of an inline-3, with some extra space for the other half. I'm pretty sure you need a 60⁰ angle for the V. Why you can't do it economically is pretty easy. Your transmission in a front theel drive vehicle is also your differential. They called them transaxles. They have way less moving parts. Rather than having a dedicated differential, going into a transmission, then to the wheels. You save a lot of unnecessary weight via less moving parts. The more moving parts you have, the less fuel efficient your vehicle.
Thanks for your response.