In this study the thermal stress distribution and deformantion characteristics resulting from the nonuniform temperature fields of the cylinder block of a light 3-cylinder 4-stroke gasoline engine were analyzed using the 3-dimensional finite element method. The temperature distributions req-uisite for the thermoelastic behavior alalysis were obtained from the steady-state heat conduction analysis performed on the basis of experimental data. in order to examine the effect of a ceramic material the cylinder liner was replaced by the silicon nitride($Si_{3}N_{4}$) and its thermal behaviors were compared with those of the original block.