A mate of mines was booking his car in for an MOT and was asking me what size of engine was in my Coop. When i told him he said another one of his mates told him that it was only a 1.8 4-cyl 20 valve engine,the same as Volkswagen . This bloke runs a CTR (standard as far as i know) so he`ll probably get a wee fright if he meets me in my 1.8 .

Baz

20 vavles across 4 cylinders

That's right, 5 valves to each cylinder

The extra cylinder makes all the difference

No 5 cylinder warble for the TT boys!!

Dave

No, lol

My brother has an Audi A3 1.8 Turbo and when he drove my Coupe, he was amazed at it's power.

I thought the boost was down on it, but according to my brother 'there's fccuk all wrong with the boost on this' and 'fccuking 'ell, this is quick'

I thought VW did a 4 cylinder 20 valve unit

search for "20 valve" here:

http://www.australvolkswagen.com.au/showroom_polo.htm

seems weird but I guess you could have 3 inlet and 2 exhaust or the other way around? Bit odd though!

yep 3in 2out, being done for years...

VAG have had a 4-cyl 20v lump for a wee while now. I remember when I first saw a Passat with one,I just assumed it was a 5-cyl till i took the engine cover off . Must be pretty cramped in the valve gear department .

I think the F355 is a 5 valves per cylinder jobbie too.

Baz

a bit more investigation reveals:

"The advantage of five vales in cylinder is that the sparkplug can be fitted in the center of the combustion chamber. When the sparkplug is in the center it provides short flame travel, resulting in rapid and relatively complete burning. Also due to the short flame travel, a compact combustion chamber with central sparkplug (or with dual ignition) reduces the engine's octane requirement.

Yep, the Pass-that which I sold recently had a 20v 4 cyl 1.8 lump in it.

What's even more odd is that it's front wheel drive but the engine is north/south (or longitudinal if you prefer long words )