This Is What It Looks Like Inside An Engine At 14,000 RPM

If you're reading Jalopnik, you probably know how an engine works: Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Intake valves open as the piston moves down in the cylinder, suck. Valves close as the piston rises, squeeze, until a bang ignites the fuel-air mixture and sends the piston down again. Exhaust valves open and the piston rises one last time to blow out the exhaust gases, and you're ready to start again. But have you ever wondered what it looks like inside a screaming sportbike engine on the pipe?

Someone over at iHeartMedia clearly did, because I stumbled across a pair of videos from 2010 on the network's now-defunct auto-specific YouTube channel that were shot inside the engine of a then-current BMW S1000R. One shows the view from inside the head, with intake and exhaust valves tapping away, while the other shows the valves opening and closing from inside two of the bike's cylinders. 

At 14,000 RPM, the intake-compression-ignition-exhaust dance must be done with incredible precision. This S1000RR made a claimed 193 horsepower from just 999 cubic centimeters of displacement — the only way to add more power to such a small engine is to make it rev to the moon, which is exactly what BMW did. That peak horsepower number came all the way at 13,000 RPM, at which point these valves would be opening and closing nearly 217 times every second (the number goes up to over 233 times per second at redline). To our eyes, the pieces almost seem to stand still. 

Your car likely can't even approach these kinds of engine speeds — you'd probably be luckily to see half of 14,000 RPM — but the smaller, lighter rotating assemblies of motorcycles give us a little peek into just how intricate and precise the mechanical engineering inside your car's power plant really is. If you want to see inside your own car, just play this clip back at about half speed.