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  • The thing that always gets me is that a top fuel dragster's engine only rotates something like 540 times in an entire quarter-mile run.
    by rconti
  • Related; I've owned a number of inline 6 cylinder motors and currently have a flat 6 (boxster). I believe the math says the I6 is smoother than the boxer 6, but my perception is that the boxer is vastly smoother. I don't know how to account for that -- maybe because of where the motor is physically located, maybe it's due to the lack of a central driveshaft, or maybe it's something else entirely.
    by rconti
  • I'm even more impressed by purely mechanical engines of the 50s and 60s that revved that high without any help from microprocessors/fuel injectors/coil packs. Porsche built a 9000 rpm race engine that had beveled gears (I had to look it up) to ensure good timing. The 550 Spyder (and apparently later 356 "hot" versions) revved up to around 8000 rpm.
    by hn_acc1
  • People take it for granted how insanely good modern internal combustion engines are after 150 years of continuous improvement.

    A modern petrol engine is a miracle in terms of reliability, performance, smoothness and (relative) lack of harmful emissions

    by ifwinterco
  • The visualisation is nice to compare with different engine types as well: https://random.ma.ttias.be/boxermotor

    My only complaint would be that there is no inline-6 while that does have some interesting properties in terms of balance compared to an inline-4 or V6.

    by t0mas88
  • I'm being incredibly pedantic, but 244Hz monitors would refresh faster than the revolutions, right? Or do I misunderstand Hz
    by dpoloncsak
  • It is awe-inspiring to think about the metal internals of a combustion engine moving so quickly because they're so heavy and complicated.

    But in some ways it's more impressive to think about a $40 Dremel 4000 that can plug into a 120v electrical socket and spin at 35000 RPM

    by Knork-and-Fife
  • In a past life I worked on a rocket engine turbopump that spun at 160,000 RPM. It’s crazy to visualize how fast that is. The stresses in the metal are so high that we needed speciality alloys made exclusively for us. The parts are literally ripping themselves apart.
    by ssuds

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