5 Cylinder engines crankshaft angles

[RaVolvoR]

A general question about the Volvo 5 cyl engines, having a chat with another petrol head the other night and he asked question I'd never really thought about before. A 4 cyl engine usually has 180 deg between each crank big end, a 6 and 12 cyl engine has 120 deg between them but what is the angle for a 5 cyl engine.. 72 deg, 144 or something else? A nerdy question I know but just wondered how the crankshaft was laid out and I wasn't going to open up my car to find out :) Has anyone ever taken a picture of one?

[TonyM]

According to this Wikipaedia article, its 144 degrees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-5

Interesting to read why

[RaVolvoR]

Thanks for that ref! It also expains why a 5 cyl has that "uneven V8" like noise...

The article didn't mention the Rover 5 cyl engine of the 1960's... they welded 2 cyls and 2 cyls sections of two blocks together to make the 5 cyl... then bought the Buick V8 as a cheaper quicker source for more power!


I read this somewhere , don't ask for reference as I doubt I could find it, probably at a guess "Classic (and Thorough Bred) Cars" magazine!