Thread: Cubic Inches vs Liters

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Well as far as I know it is written on every oil container somewhere that 1quart=946 ml or 946cc. To all intents and purposes 1 ml = 1 cc = 1 cu. cm. although that is really only true at 4 degrees C since only at that that temperature does 1 ml of water = 1 gram of mass and the density of water on which the liter is based does vary slightly with temperature. So basically a liter is roughly equal to a quart. The way I remember which is bigger is to recall the picture that ran in pulp magazines for over 20 years for the Charles Atlas body building advertisement in which a muscular guy kicks sand on a skinny guy at the beach with his girlfriend and I recall "A leader is bigger than a squirt!" so OBVIOUSLY (!) a Liter is bigger than a Quart! (Sometimes it takes silly rhymes to remember this stuff, but it works!) So since 1 inch = 2.54 cm, 1 cu. in. = (2.54x2.54x2.54) cc = 16.387064 cc. Thus a 2.0 L Pinto 4 cyl is about 122.05 cu. in. and conversely a 355 cu. in. SBC would be (355 x 16.3870 )= 5817.385 cc or 5.817 L. I know it's annoying to convert to metric values but the advantage gained is that the metrics are all related by powers of 10 and of course that is helpful since we can then use our fingers and toes to count (Ann Bolynn had 11 fingers, however so there are exceptions!). If you really want to get confused check out the British Imperial Gallon versus the U. S. Gallon or try to work on a British sports car where the measurements are not metric but may not all be SAE either! That is why I have several "adjustable" cresent wrenches! Hey how about those side-draft carbs, aren't they fun!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder