The defining characteristic of a two-stroke engine is to fire (combust) every time the piston is at top dead center. This makes them highly power dense, but also notoriously makes two-stroke engines ...

Piston engines are the heart of many machines we use today, from cars and airplanes to industrial machinery and motorcycles.

History credits Nicolaus Otto with inventing the four-stroke cycle engine. Working on a compressed charge, it was assembled in 1876 with help from two men who would define the automotive industry ...

Most modern gasoline and diesel-powered engines found in the cars and trucks seen on today's roadways rely on the four-cycle-engine principles developed in the late 1800s by Nikolaus Otto ...