As far as the cylinder arrangement is concerned, there are straight, boxer and V engines, with either one, or two cylinder heads. Two V-engines, each with one cylinder head, can be combined by a common crankshaft to form a W-engine. In the past, almost every combination of cylinder arrangements has been already been used. These include, e.g., engines with one- or two crankshafts, the pistons on one side or on both. Amongst the V-engines with two cylinder heads, there are nowadays, (in motorcycle racing) even those with an odd number of cylinders. Also twin cylinders with uneven running pistons, thus completely uneven ignition timing. In the history of the combustion engine, the nop-notch was always the straight engine, either as eight-or also as twelve cylinders and the multi-cylinders with oval pistons from Honda.

Twin cylinder in-line engine

Three cylinder in-line engine

Four cylinder in-line engine

Five cylinder in-line engine

Six cylinder in-line engine

Twin cylinder boxer motor

Four cylinder boxer motor

Six cylinder-boxer motor

Six cylinder V-engine

Eight cylinder V-engine

V8-engine block

V10-engine block

Five cylinder-VR engine

Six cylinder-VR engine

W8-engine block

W12-engine block