What cylinder is my car? This is an important question in understanding the basics of a car engine. However, the automotive world would say it is about how many cylinders your car has, as well as how they are arranged.
What is a Cylinder?
An engine contains a big metal block, usually made of cast iron or aluminum, called the cylinder block. A cylinder is a large drilled hole within this block. Modern car engines will contain more than one cylinder, with the typical minimum being four.
What Does a Cylinder Do?
An engine has a combustion cycle, which consists of four strokes: intake, compression, power, and exhaust. This cycle is completed within the cylinders, and a piston, which moves up and down inside the cylinder, facilitates this.
Essentially, an air/fuel mixture is drawn into the cylinder, compressed and ignited, then removed from the cylinder via exhaust. This is the basic operation of a car’s engine.
How Many Cylinders Do I Have?
Now that you have an idea of what a cylinder is and why it is important in an engine, we can go over how to find out the number of cylinders you have.
Your owner’s manual might describe your engine configuration. Even if not, the manual should have a diagram of your engine bay, which you can use to help you identify the parts under your hood so you can locate the cylinder block.
You can also Google your make, model, and year to find out the engine configuration. However, be sure to also include the trim level of your vehicle, as not all cars are sold with the same engine. For example, the Acura TLX can be purchased with either a four or six cylinder engine. Many Audi and BMWs have also been sold with a base four cylinder engine, and the higher trim levels include a six cylinder engine.
If unsure what your trim level is, you can find your VIN number (this might be located on your doorjamb, windshield, or on your car insurance card) and use a VIN decoder online to find the exact specifications of your vehicle. Of course, this method will likely include a description of the engine type in your car, answering your question.
Are you familiar with engine bays, you can always simply pop the hood and look around. Identifying the coil packs is most helpful, as an engine will have one coil pack per cylinder. Normally the coil pack will have a connector attached to it, and the top of the coil itself will likely have a somewhat square/rectangular design.
If there is a cover over the engine, remove it and then count how many spark plugs there are. The number of spark plugs you have, is the same number as how many cylinder your care have.
What About Cylinder Configurations?
In addition to having multiple cylinders, they can be organized different ways within the engines themselves. For example, if you have a four cylinder engine, you will see it referred to as an “I4”. The I stands for inline, and an inline four engine means the cylinders are organized adjacent to one another in a straight line.
Another common cylinder configuration is the V6, which looks somewhat like the letter V, with three cylinders on one side and the other three on the opposite side. However, there are also I6 vehicles, with all six cylinders in a straight line. However, the most common six cylinder configuration is the V6.
An eight cylinder engine, or V8, is another common type. Some less common configurations include I5s, V10s, and even V12s. With all these we also have W8, W10 and W12, which has the same number as the V8, V10 and V12. But the shape of the engine is different.
Why Does Cylinder Count Matter?
With all the different types of organization and numbers of cylinders out there, you might be wondering what the differences are and why you might want a V6 over an I4, or vice versa.
Most modern cars on the market today are going to have an I4 engine. This is because they are fuel efficient, small, and the automotive market has went more towards adding forced induction on smaller engines rather than naturally aspirated, larger engines.
Forced induction can mean either a turbo or supercharger, both of which are ways to increase the amount of air fed to your car’s engine. This helps increase performance, and therefore overall power. Many automotive manufacturers, like Mazda, have been using I4 engines paired with a turbocharger in order to increase horsepower numbers while maintaining good fuel economy and reasonable selling prices.
In other words, all else being equal, an I4 engine is not going to be as powerful as a V6. This is because of the greater capacity the additional cylinders provide. The key words here, though, are “all else being equal”. This is rarely if ever the case when talking about cars.
For example: A 1986 Nissan 300ZX turbo, with a turbocharged V6 engine, produces a maximum 225 horsepower, while a 2020 Honda Accord 2.0T, with a turbocharged I4, produces a maximum 252 horsepower. This is not to say that the Accord would provide a more spirited driving experience, necessarily, as the 300ZX is a rear-wheel drive sports car and the Accord is a family sedan with front-wheel drive.
Instead, the point here is to show that vehicles can have larger engines, yet less power, so it is not automatically true that a higher cylinder count means more powerful car.
In fact, there is much more to a car’s overall performance than just the number of cylinders it has, such as the way the manufacturer tuned the engine. This just gives you a general sense of the different engine configurations and how they might differ from each other.
You can generally expect that a modern I4 will be more economical fuel-wise than a V6, although some manufacturers are able to produce V6 engines with nearly the same fuel economy as the smaller I4s, which is an impressive feat.
In Sum
The number of cylinders in your car can be determined by looking under the hood, referencing the Internet, or by looking it up in your owner’s manual. The most common types are I4 and V6, although there are other configurations.
Generally, the more cylinders you have, the more power your car makes, but this is not always the case and depends on many factors in addition to the cylinder count.