Why Inline 5 Engines Can't Be Carbureted and Why They're So Rare

If possible, please watch at least half the video before commenting about individual carbs, inline 6 single carb and carbed Audi i5. It's all in the video. After making the video I discovered, thanks to commenter "user-ox7lg4tp9s" that the carbed Audi i5 actually has a special intake synchronizing device or similar inside it that makes it work. I haven't yet dug much deeper but info is hard to find. I might try getting my hands on the physical manifold if possible and interesting.

this is a crock of s h i t

I mean it wouldn't be to complex to make an equal length i5 intake manifold but it would add a lot of space.

I was wondering if they would be able to make a 5 cylinder I the "V" configuration? Would it be possible to tune. I live in New Zealand, I used to have a V6 mk.5 Cortina. It had a 2 barrel carburetor. Maybe it would be better for it to use fuel injection? It probably wouldn't be worth it these days as people motor vehicle companies are now planning to go more towards making vehicles electric or a hybrid. It would be interesting 🤔

Interestingly, Ford had a five cylinder engine ready for production in the late '30s. This suggests that they had coped with the fueling by carburetor problem.

Single carbs

So a more accurate title would be "Why Inline 5 Engines Shouldn't Be Carbureted"

Just use 5 carburetors like the I4 motorcycle engines. If need be run longer intakes for them too.

How do u animate these engines that is so cool

why not make all the intake manifolds the same length just like exhasts? surely theres a reason...

I like this guy. Just as my 20v turbo engines in my cars.

Pure knowledge Injection. Thanks for the hit, man, you're second to none with delivery.

Land Rover Td5 is worth a mention! I love my Defender 130, much due to this engine.

in theory the dual carb design could be done with a 911 and standard style webber performance carb (these are usually used for 1 throttle/cylinder applications with less of the usual individual bike carb issues, you'll commonly see them on Bialbero alfas in the 2 throttle form like you showed in the video), it'd be nothing if not interesting to tune but it'd likely run smoothly enough

How about making cylinder's 2, 3 and 4 intake longer so that it equals cylinder's 1 and 5 length?

One carb per cylinder is only way to go . Allen Millyard did it

Interesting video, but did I miss why an carbureted inline 3 is okay but a 5 is not??

Thought is sounded like shit compared to a sports Subaru, RWX.

Just use a carb per cylinder.

audio is horrible on this video

GDI with individual throttle body is the solution

So much bad info. 0/10

New topic request: radial engines!

Audì had 5 cyl carb and fuel injection in South Africa

I was lucky enough to get a 08 Chevy Colorado with the I-5. I had the truck for 13 years. Only issue, thermostat would go bad.
It was great. Fun to drive, good mpg on the highway. If I had the time/money I wanted to put a power adder, turbo. I did intake/exhaust. Just needed a little bit more, in my opinion. The sound, it would turn heads.

What about the Chrysler LEANING TOWER OF POWER.?...

They need a 1-4-2-5-3 firing order so they run in a carb and won’t be as unbalanced

The simple solution is a tuned length intake manifold. But that takes a lot of room as well. The VW LT commercial light truck had the line-5 with carburator - and the performance was pretty poor. :-)

What if you could change the firing order to 1-4-2-5-3

Interesting facts with the runner lengths though

Cool video

Single carb 4 cyl engines have adjacent cylinders firing. 1-3-4-2, so 3-4 and 1-2 fire consecutively. Single carb intake for those work, maybe not perfectly. Channels in the floor of the intake are used to direct fuel to 4 and 2 which fire second. V twin motorcycle engines have the same issue.

Always wanted to learn about engines and you are a one stop shop of quality education. Thanks!

A note on the I-5 GM engines… the ones in the older Colorado’s and Canyon’s are awful in my experience. Seen quite a few give up the ghost with not very high mileage. Five cylinders do really sound great. Five cylinder and ten cylinders are my favorite engines. They just sing.

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet but Chrysler/Force outboard marine engines 150 hp models were 5 cylinders with 3 carburetors from 1989-1994. They were 2 stroke but it doesn't say anything about that in the video. Love your channel was just making that known though.

Literally, the simplest answer for a single carburetor regardless of the carburetor size it to just have an isometric also known as an equal length intake manifold so all the intake runners are the same length.

5 cylinders? Why inline? A radial 5 would work better. Mount it horizontally, drop-shaft, and the vertical problems are solved. Intake runners are all equal... but 5 individual carbs in this setup would work better. Modern computerized carbs offer quite an advantage over old manual ones. Get even more power by building it two-cycle. Radial engines run best with odd numbers of cylinders, and they sound awesome.

Did people just figure out that an inline 5 wouldn't work with a carb, or did they learn the hard way by building one?

1981 Volkswagen Passat GL5S.
1.9litre, 5 cylinder 10v engine, fully available from the factory to the public, roadcar not a racing or development engine. Carburetted.

I thought you said that 5-cylinders can't be carburetted? VAG group says that yes they can be, they did, you can still buy one if you look hard enough. 🤔

Wow wrong on so many levels

This guy doesn't have a clue! 😅

The middle of the vid said that the reason it didn’t work was nothing to do with the short middle runner? (Said at first). Just odd really. I’m sticking with V6 as best for a car. I love a V8, but it’s just a tad too long for leg room on sensible sized cars. V12 are just for war planes, the jag is silly 😜

Wait, maybe i am wrong, but i am pretty sure there are a lot of Diesel Engines with Carburetor.
Old Submarine Engines or old Ship Engines.

Run a cam or something off the rockers to close/open each intake individually. Then 1 carb will work.

my folks had an 1976 Audi 100 LS with the 5 cylinder. To the ears of this 8 year old, nothing sounded sweeter than that engine. And it was a 5 speed, to maximize the fun sounds.

Shameless clickbait... as demonstrated in the very vid, lol

But to feel shame you need to HAVE shame, I guess...

This is literally my favorite engine configuration... It's extremely unique.

I own an 2010 2.5 Jetta, which my mom suffered an accident in, I was aiming to throw its engine in a Santana (cheaper version of the passat B2).

So... can't carburate tho?

Can you please make more videos of iconic engines? Some engines that I suggest to mention are the Ford EcoBoost V6 and Dodge Viper V10 engines.

The Chevy and GMC compact pickups in North America from around 2005 use a 5 cyl gas. I don’t know much about them though.

😂 Touche'