Piston Speed Calculator
Calculate the approximate speed at which pistons move in an engine with this free tool.
Required Information
Average Piston Speed:
Create Date: October 2, 2024
Last Modified Date: November 15, 2024
Piston speed can be calculated by utilizing two variables:
Your result will be a single numerical value which indicates the speed at which an engine piston is moving. By default it is displayed in feet per minute but can be easily converted into another unit with the use of the dropdown selector.
You can easily calculate the speed at which a piston is moving with our tool in just a few steps. The steps include:
Let's say that you want to find the piston speed for your car when you are driving. Your RPM gauge is showing that you are driving at 3,000 RPM and you already know the stroke length of your engine is 81.4 millimeters. To calculate the speed you can enter each value into our tool, but make sure you change the stroke length field to be millimeters.
You can now hit calculate to get an average piston speed of 1,602.36 feet per minute, or 26.71 feet per second if we change the unit of measurement to that.
A piston is a relatively simple but impactful piece of an engine. To get a better understanding of what exactly it does, this video illustrates it very clearly.
The stroke refers to the total amount of space in the cylinder that it has to be moved within.
A common sign of a piston that has gone bad is white or gray smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe. You may also experience loss of power in terms of acceleration and top speed since there is less compression and less power being generated by one or more of the pistons.
A V8 will have 8 pistons, each cylinder has a single piston. So a V6 will have 6 pistons and a V4 will have 4 pistons.
