W Engine explained - Why High End

Explanation

The W engine is a regular piston based internal combustion four stroke engine with the W describing the configuration of the pistons. It is another type of engine in addition to the inline and v engines.
A W engine viewed from the front looks like a fat V engine and has a good reason for being so. The letter "W" is written as two V's joined together at the top but the W engine is two V's joined at the bottom so the letter and the engine although slightly different still shares a similar concept.
In essence the engine is two narrow angle V engines sharing the same crankshaft. A regular V engine is between 60 to 90 degrees but the V's in the W engine is about 15 degrees so you don't see the separation between each block of the narrow angle V.
The purpose of the W engine is to make a large engine further compact and the popular W engines are very large engines.

The cylinder layout on a W engine block

The 6 litre W-12 found in the Audi A8 and the 8 litre W-16 found in the Bugatti Veyron are two very large engines and they occupy less space by using the W configuration.
The 6 litre W-12 engine in the Audi A8 will be shorter than a 6 litre V-12 found in its competitors such as the BMW 7 Series or the Mercedes S-Class. The W-12 engine will be slightly wider than the V-12 engines but it is still narrow enough to fit comfortably in the engine bay.

The narrow angle allows each V to form one block with one engine head each. There may even be one set of camshafts for each V so you can understand how the W engine can resemble a V engine. The cylinders are also not directly opposite to each other but they're in a noticeable zig zag pattern.
The W engine was first developed by Volkswagen for their racing cars and Volkswagen later decided to use them in production vehicles. The W configuration have been proven to be useful as there is more space to have all wheel drive parts under the bonnet as opposed to an engine of similar proportions in the V configuration.

External Links

Detailed Explanation

A detailed explanation from wisegeek.com

Video

A youtube video showing the W engine animation

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