What are the advantages of an all-aluminum engine?
2 Answers
The advantages of an all-aluminum engine are: 1. Lightweight and powerful; 2. Excellent heat dissipation, resulting in high engine efficiency. The all-aluminum engine itself can also dissipate a large amount of useless heat, keeping the engine in an optimal working environment and extending its lifespan. Using an aluminum cylinder block engine in engines of the same displacement can reduce weight by approximately 20 kilograms. For every 10% reduction in the overall weight of the vehicle, fuel consumption can be reduced by 6% to 8%. The cylinder blocks of gasoline engines are divided into cast iron and cast aluminum types, while in diesel engines, cast iron cylinder blocks account for the vast majority.
I've driven several cars with all-aluminum engines, and the most noticeable difference is how much lighter the front end feels, making steering incredibly responsive. The heat dissipation is impressively fast—even in summer traffic with the AC on, the coolant temperature gauge hardly ever hits the red zone. Fuel efficiency is genuinely better too: my old cast-iron engine averaged 7L/100km on highways, while the same displacement with an aluminum engine now stays steadily around 6L. One caveat though—aluminum's softer nature means extra care is needed during repairs like timing chain elongation, especially to avoid bolt thread stripping when removing the cylinder head. Most modern all-aluminum engines now use aluminum alloy cylinder liners, which significantly improve wear resistance.
