VW Golf VR6

Small but great. This is in short an estimate Volkswagen VR6 engine, a special construction engine that is not encountered every day. Volkswagen was introduced by the VR6 engine in the spring of 1991. Volkswagen wanted to create an extremely compact, advanced performance engine, and it was the first six-cylinder, turbine-free engine to be fitted forward and transversely into a single VW car and propelled the front wheels. The first model that powered the VR6 engine was the Volkswagen Golf VR6, and later that engine powered other cars such as Vento, Corrado and Passat, and a little later VW Transporter T4. Until the advent of VR6 engines, the large and long six-cylinder engines were reserved for the drive of only high-end luxury sedans in which they provided high comfort and excellent performance, at which time consumption and ecology were of little importance.

The great advantage of in-line six-cylinder engines was the huge torque and extremely quiet operation, but they could only be installed longitudinally in high-class sedans. On the other hand the classic V6 engine configuration, the width is too large and therefore its weight. Volkswagen experts looked at how to take the best of both six-cylinder engines (in-line and ‘V’), that the dimensions could fit in a Golf-sized car, and that it was fitted transversely forward and propelled the front wheels. Volkswagen's designers came up with an ingenious idea - the VR6 engine. This engine is halfway between a classic in-line and a ‘V’ engine (with an angle of 60 or 90 degrees between the rows of cylinders). The main trick performed by VW experts is essentially the 'V' configuration of the arrangement of the two rows of cylinders at an extremely small angle of only 15 degrees, so that the VR6 really falls in the middle between the in-line and 'V' engines in terms of physical dimensions. the best part of the performance.

VR6 engine

Namely, both rows of cylinders (from 3 cylinders in a row) are not spaced symmetrically in parallel, but at extremely small angles and both rows of cylinders are displaced longitudinally, so that a substantially zigzag arrangement of cylinders is obtained. This maximized the space between the cylinders and rows and produced an extremely compact construction, which was much shorter than the regular six-cylinder engine and also much narrower than the classic 'V' six-cylinder engine. Of course, apart from the theoretical arrangement of two rows of three cylinders in the described manner, due to the extremely compact construction and lack of space, many problems had to be solved, such as the arrangement of the valves, the thickness of the wall around the cylinder and the valves, which required the use of much better materials for engine block and head, and valves, and there was the problem of optimal cooling of this extremely 'packed' configuration.

The VR6 engine designation comes from the initial letters of the word. ('V' for 'V'-shape,' R 'for ordinal shape, and the number' 6 'is the number of cylinders). During 24 years, the VR6 engine has been perfected, a version with four valves per cylinder has arrived, and the engine has been given a new shorter designation 'V6', and a physically shorter version of the engine marked 'V5' has been offered. VR6 removed one cylinder. The VR6 engine in the 36 VW Passat R2006 developed a maximum power of 3.6 hp from a 300-liter displacement.

Prepared by: Davor Kindy
Source: autoportal.hr