Dear All,

I've just discovered something - the cubic capacity of an engine refers to the sum of the swept volume or displacement volume of each cylinder in an engine. So this is simply defined as the area of the bore multiplied by the stroke.

It doesn't include dished surfaces in the head or the piston crowns.

Timing adjustment methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_displacement

But how could I measure or calculate the true volume of each cylinder?

Does anyone know? All of the handy engine calculators on the internet assume that you know the volumes of the dished surfaces in the piston crowns and the head to start off with.

With an engine in bits I could fill complicated surfaces with oil and then measure the volume of the oil tipped out of them - but there would be errors due to surface tension (and probably other things). This would also be a pain in the backside.

I have also had trouble measuring by how much head gaskets get compressed when a head is fitted and torqued in place. I know these parts of the engine are only going to contribute small amounts but all the same I'd like to make accurate measurements if I could.

So does anyone have any tips? Has anyone heard of any hair brain ideas that can do this?

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!