[Mart]

You square it because you want the area of the cylinder.

Area of a circle is Pi r squared.

Because we know the bore rather than the radius, we have to use the alternative formula that uses the diameter.

Area of a circle is pi d squared all over 4. (over = divided by)

Volume of one cylinder of a stock 239 for example is:

3.1875 * 3.1875 * 3.1416 / 4 Which equals 7.9798. Unit is square inches.

Volume of a cylinder = area * length.

So 7.9798 * 3.75 = 29.9242. Now the unit is cubic inches. So just shy of 30 cu in.

Volume of the engine is volume of one cylinder times the number of cylinders.

So 29.9242 * 8 = 239.3936

Rounded to 239 for ease of reference.

I used a known engine because we are already familiar with the answer.

In the examples above the shortcut is to use pi/4. 3.1416/4 = .7854.

The above formulae are completely universal and by using centimeters the volume in cc can be calculated.

Mart.