system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: When a car engine is listed as having some amount of liters (like a 3.2 liter engine), what does that actually mean? What does that affect, and how?
gpt
Liters, cubic inches or cubic centermetres (cc's) for smaller motorcycle engines all reference the displacement of the area inside the piston cylinders where the gas and air mix and explode to provide the force that moves the pistons, and thus moves the car. 

In general, the more explody gas action from more cubic inches or liters or whatever, the more power you get from an engine. However there's lots of nuances to it. There are ways to get a relatively small (like 1.4L) 4 cylinder engine to produce almost as much (horse)power as a larger 3.6L V6 engine for example, likewise a modern 3.6L V6 engine from today may have the same amount of horsepower as a big 5L V8 from 15 years ago. 

But stuff like torque and energy efficiency and compression ratios and turbo/super charging is a bit beyond the ELi5 level.