May. 26, 2025
For the majority of people, a car is a hunk of metal they fill with fuel and drive to their desired location. However, have you ever wondered how it works? What makes it move? Unless you have switched to an electric vehicle as your daily drive, the magic of it all comes down to the internal combustion engine—the thing that makes noise under the hood.
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Even though most people refer to the entire engine as one single entity, car engines are made of several individual parts working together to make the vehicle function. You might be familiar with some of these car engine part names, but understanding their function and relation to the rest of the car engine components is vital.
The engine is a power generator/power plant or a motor, which provides power to drive the automobile.
The engine is the heart of your car. It is a complex machine built to convert heat from burning gas into the force that turns the road wheels. It consists of two basic parts: the lower, heavier section is the cylinder block, a casing for the engine’s main moving parts; the detachable upper cover is the cylinder head.
In most automobile engines, the explosive power of the mixture of air and gasoline drives the pistons. The pistons turn a crankshaft to which they are attached. The rotating force of the crankshaft makes the automobile’s wheels turn.
Some automobiles are powered by another kind of engine, known as the rotary valve, rotating combustion engine, or Wankel engine. The rotary valve engine also draws in a mixture of air and fuel, which is then compressed and burnt.
A motor revolving in an elliptical chamber is connected to a shaft, which finally drives the rear wheels. In most automobiles, the engine is mounted at the front end of the car, with the clutch and gearbox immediately behind it; the engine, clutch, and gearbox are assembled into a single unit.
Several systems are necessary to make an engine work. A lubrication system is needed to reduce friction and prevent engine wear. A cooling system is required to keep the engine’s temperature within safe limits. The engine must be provided with the correct amount of air and fuel by a fuel system.
The mixture of air and fuel must be ignited inside the cylinder at just the right time by an ignition system. Finally, an electrical system is required to operate the cranking motor that starts the engine and to provide electrical energy to power engine accessories.
Specifically, an internal combustion engine is a heat engine in that it converts energy from the heat of burning gasoline into mechanical work, or torque. That torque is applied to the wheels to make the car move.
And unless you are driving an ancient two-stroke Saab (which sounds like an old chainsaw and belches oily smoke out its exhaust), your engine works on the same basic principles whether you’re wheeling a Ford or a Ferrari.
Engines have pistons that move up and down inside metal tubes called cylinders. Imagine riding a bicycle: Your legs move up and down to turn the pedals.
Pistons are connected via rods (they’re like your shins) to a crankshaft, and they move up and down to spin the engine’s crankshaft, the same way your legs spin the bike’s—which in turn powers the bike’s drive wheel or car’s drive wheels.
Depending on the vehicle, there are typically between two and 12 cylinders in its engine, with a piston moving up and down in each.
The internal combustion engine consists of cylinders, pistons, fuel injectors, and spark plugs. Combined, these components burn fuel and let the exhaust gas out of the cylinders. By repeating the process, it creates energy that powers the car.
But what powers those pistons up and down are thousands of tiny controlled explosions occurring each minute, created by mixing fuel with oxygen and igniting the mixture.
Each time the fuel ignites is called the combustion, or power, stroke. The heat and expanding gases from this mini-explosion push the piston down in the cylinder.
Almost all of today’s internal combustion engines (to keep it simple, we’ll focus on gasoline powerplants here) are of the four-stroke variety.
Beyond the combustion stroke, which pushes the piston down from the top of the cylinder, there are three other strokes: intake, compression, and exhaust.
The gasoline engine is a type of internal combustion engine. The gasoline engine has 4 basic strokes including the intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust. Gasoline gets mixed with air easily, so it can produce combustion with just a little spark. As a result, the gasoline engine has a spark plug to ignite the air and fuel mixture. Here’s how the four strokes of the gasoline engine operate.
The operation of a diesel engine is similar to that of a gasoline engine, but they are slightly different in how they ignite the air and fuel mixture. In gasoline engines, the air and fuel are pre-mixed before being sucked into the cylinder.
On the other hand, diesel engines use fuel injectors to spray fuel into the cylinder. As diesel engines have no spark plug, they need to have higher compression ratios to ensure that the air and fuel mixture is compressed enough to make an ignition.
Now let’s look at all the parts that work together to make this happen.
Let us see a simple car engine parts diagram, including all the main parts which are essential to know. Refer to the below car engine parts diagram so that we can understand the exact location of each one and how it looks.
These diagrams typically include the engine block, combustion chamber, cylinder head, pistons, crankshaft, camshaft, timing chain, valves, rocker arms, pushrods/lifters, injectors, spark plugs, oil pan, distributor, connecting rods, piston ring, and flywheels.
Read More: 40 Basic Parts of a Car Explain with Name & Diagram
While many of us think of the engine as one major component, it’s made up of several individual components working simultaneously.
The list of Car Engine parts Name:
A typical internal combustion engine has around 200 parts that need to be maintained and possibly replaced if they wear out. An electric vehicle takes that number down to around 20 parts.
But don’t worry, we are only discussing the main parts of a car engine.
Car engines are designed around sealed, resilient metal cylinders. Most modern vehicles have between four and eight cylinders, though some vehicles can have as many as sixteen! The cylinders are made to open and close at precisely the correct time to bring in fuel to combine with the spark for burning internally, and to release the exhaust gases produced.
While many of us think of the engine as one major component, it’s made up of several individual components working simultaneously. You may have heard of some of these car engine parts’ names, but it’s important to know what their role is and how they relate to other components within the engine.
The different parts that make up your car’s engine consist of the engine block (cylinder block), the combustion chamber, the cylinder head, pistons, the crankshaft, the camshaft, the timing chain, the valve train, valves, rocker arms, pushrods/lifters, fuel injectors, and spark plugs.
The engine block contains the most critical parts of an engine. This part contains many holes to accommodate the cylinders and numerous water and oil passageways for the engine’s coolant and lubricant flow. Oil passageways are narrower than water passageways.
The engine block contains the pistons, crankshaft, camshaft, and between four and twelve cylinders, depending on the vehicle, which are all mounted in line or “inline” or flat or “V” shapes.
Essentially, all the other parts of the engine are bolted to the engine block. Inside the block is where the magic happens, such as combustion.
A piston is a cylindrical component with a flat surface on top. It helps in transferring the energy generated from combustion to the crankshaft. For every rotation of the crankshaft, the pistons move up and down in the cylinder, which is a twice-per-rotation trip.
In a minute, an engine running at rpm would lift a piston up and down times. Piston rings, which are positioned on the lower part of the piston, serve as a device for increasing the degree of compression and reducing friction of the piston with the cylinder.
The cylinder head is connected to the engine by multiple bolts for the cylinder and is sealed by a head gasket.
Many of the components are packed tightly into the cylinder head, such as the valve springs, the valves, the lifters, pushrods, rockers, and camshafts, which act as gates for the passageways that permit intake air flow into the cylinders during the intake stroke.
And also for the exhaust passages to remove exhaust gases during the exhaust stroke.
The crankshaft is located at the bottom part of the engine block, and within the crankshaft journals (an area of the shaft that rests on the bearings).
This part is extraordinarily well-balanced and machined because it is connected to the pistons via the connecting rod.
The same way a jack-in-the-box works, the crankshaft transforms the piston’s vertical motion into rotational motion at the speed of the engine.
Camshaft location depends on the model of the car, it could be in the engine block or the cylinder heads.
Most modern automobiles have them placed in the cylinder heads (also called DOHC or Dual Overhead Camshaft, where there are two or more camshafts per cylinder head, or a Single Overhead Camshaft is SOHC), and are supported by a sequence of bearings that are lubricated with oil for longevity.
The camshaft’s function is to manage the specific sequence when valves are opened and closed. Additionally, it takes the rotation from the crankshaft and converts it into vertical motion that controls the lift of the lifters to move the pushrods, rockers, and valves.
A timing belt, timing chain, or cambelt is all part of an engine that functions to synchronize both the crankshaft and camshaft rotation while ensuring valves are opened and closed in every cylinder at the correct intervals during the intake and exhaust strokes.
In an interference engine, the timing belt or chain is necessary to ensure that the piston does not collide with the valves. A timing belt is usually a toothed belt, a drive belt with teeth on its inner surface. A timing chain is classified as a roller or bicycle chain.
The belt consists of high-strength rubber and teeth that allow it to hold the pulleys located at the camshaft and crankshaft. The chain, like a bicycle chain, goes around gears (or pulleys).
Engine valves are parts found in an engine. They control the entry of air, fuel, and the exit of exhaust gases from the cylinder head or combustion chamber when the engine is in operation.
The operation of the valve does not involve any complex procedures – the cam pushes the valves into the cylinder where they scrub against the spring, thus opening the valve to permit the flow of gases, subsequently allowing the spring to close the valve.
In essence, the pressure present in the combustion chamber assists in sealing the valve shut.
The oil pan is an engine part that is simple in form but plays an essential function when it comes to the engine’s lubrication system. Oil is pumped through the different parts of the engine to maintain lubrication and to reduce friction. Without oil, friction would make the engine unserviceable in a short time.
The oil pan keeps that oil contained in the lubrication system, meaning that oil should not escape while the vehicle is in motion. Being a metal part bolted to another metal part, there is a gasket located where the oil pan meets the engine.
A combustion chamber refers to the region within the cylinder where the fuel and air mixture are ignited. While the piston compresses the air inside the cylinder, the fuel/air mixture rubs against the spark plug, which causes ignition of the mixture followed by combustion. The hot gas pushes against the pistons, giving them energy.
The cylinder contains most of the significant parts of an internal combustion engine, such as the Injector Nozzle, Piston, Spark Plug, and combustion chamber, among others.
In a car, the intake manifold is the part of the engine that receives airflow and divides it among the cylinders. Oftentimes, an intake manifold contains a throttle valve (throttle body) and some other parts.
An intake manifold might consist of several different sections or parts in some V6 and V8 engines.
Air is drawn in through the air filter, intake boot (snorkel) up through the throttle body into the intake manifold plenum, then through the runners into the cylinders. The throttle valve (body) controls, by allowing more or less air, the rotation speed of the engine.
Exhaust manifold is an engine component, which is usually a simple unit made from cast iron or stainless steel that combines and collects the exhaust gas of the engine from several cylinders and passes it through to the exhaust pipe. It is connected to the exhaust valves. It is built in the same way as the inlet manifold.
If we observe the petrol and diesel engines, the exhaust manifold serves the same purpose in both, which is to transport exhaust gas.
Inlet and exhaust valves serve the purpose of controlling the incoming air charge that needs to be burned is coming to the engine, as well as governing the exhaust gases exiting the cylinder.
They are mounted either on the cylinder heads or on the walls of the cylinder. Their shape resembles that of mushrooms.
In petrol engines, a mixture of air and fuel is sucked through the inlet valve, while in diesel engines, only air is sucked in through the intake valve. The outlet exhaust valve for both types is used to release the exhaust gases.
The design consists of intake valves located on the intake manifold and exhaust valves mounted on the exhaust manifold. Both the intake and exhaust manifolds have been discussed previously.
The function of a spark plug is to provide power from an ignition system to the combustion chamber of an engine by a spark so that the fuel mix that is compressed will ignite while the pressure from the combustion is sealed within the engine itself.
The construction of a spark plug consists of a metal threaded shell along with a cylindrical ceramic that acts as an insulator between a central electrode and the shell.
The third electrode, which may include a resistance, is joined by a high-grade insulator wire to the output of the ignition coil or a magneto.
A connecting rod is a part of a piston engine that binds the piston to the crankshaft. In collaboration with the crank, the connecting rod transforms the piston’s linear motion into rotational movement of the crankshaft.
The connecting rod must handle and transmit the compressive and tensile stresses of the piston. In most circumstances, this is achieved using an internal combustion engine where the connecting rod allows for pivoting at the piston end and rotation at the shaft end.
The connecting rod was developed from the mechanical linkage present in water mills that was used to change the rotational motion of the water wheel into back-and-forth movement.
A piston ring is a metallic split ring, in the form of a spline, attached to the outer circumference of the piston in a steam engine or an internal combustion engine.
The primary roles of piston rings in engines include:
Piston rings are usually manufactured from cast iron or steel.
A gudgeon pin or wrist pin is a particular part of the internal combustion engine.
It acts as the connecting element between the connecting rod and the piston. Gudgeon pins may also be fitted to the connecting rods and wheels, or cranks.
These are parts of camshafts. Because of these parts, a shaft becomes a camshaft. Cams are placed onto the camshaft to control the rotation of the inlet and exhaust valves’ timing.
Now we move over to the most essential parts of the car engine.
The flywheel is a simple mechanical device that employs the law of conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy relative to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotation speed.
The torque generated from the engine is not consistent; it changes from time to time. If a vehicle keeps moving with such erratic power, this will lead to great discomfort to the rider and also reduce the life of its different components.
The use of a flywheel resolves the problem of fluctuating loads. A flywheel is usually mounted on the camshaft. It functions as a torque buffer. It does this by storing torque at its peak and releasing it during its low phases within a cycle of operation.
A gasket is a ring or a piece of cut-out form known to have remarkable elasticity in a non-moving application that can seal the joints, flanges, and other boundaries to make made to ensure that there will not be any leakage.
These are different types of gaskets:
A cylinder liner is a component in the form of a thin metallic tube that is designed to be placed inside an engine block to create a cylinder. It is one of the most important functional parts to make up the interior of an engine.
The sliding surfaces for the piston rings while keeping the oil are the cylinder walls, which provide a crescent sliding space for the piston rings mounted within the cylinder. The outermost part of the cylinder is the cylinder liner, which serves as a wall.
While in service, the action of the piston rings coupled with the piston skirt makes the cylinder liner undergo wear. The wrap of smooth oil that envelopes the walls of the cylinder helps reduce this wear. This is also aided by a glaze layer that forms naturally when the engine is in use.
In a reciprocating internal combustion engine, a crankcase contains the crankshaft. Most modern engines have the crankcase as part of the engine block.
Typically, two-stroke engines employ a crankcase-compression design. This allows the fuel/air mixture to traverse the crankcase before entry into the cylinder(s). This style of engine does not include an oil sump in the crankcase.
Four-stroke engines usually possess an oil sump located at the lower section of the crankcase, and a majority of the oil in the engine is stored in the crankcase.
In four-stroke engines, the crankcase does not receive fuel/air mixture, but a small volume of exhaust gases usually comes in as “blow-by” from the combustion chamber.
The crankcase also constitutes the lower part of the main bearing journals alongside the bearing caps, while in some engines, the crankcase fully encloses the main bearing journals.
A distributor is a type of rotating enclosed shaft used to vary the timing of spark ignition in internal combustion engines.
A distributor’s role is primarily to direct, or switch, high voltage current from the ignition coil to the spark plugs in the proper firing order and for the proper duration.
Unless in magneto systems and a lot of contemporary computer-controlled engines that implement crank angle position sensors, the distributor also contains an electromechanical or inductive breaker switch which opens and closes the coil primary circuit.
Distributors often use a specifically manufactured o-ring, which is placed on the shaft of the distributor and serves to seal the distributor with the engine, which is known as the distributor o-ring.
The distributor o-ring’s role is to keep the casing of the distributor and the engine from separating to avoid oil leakage at the bottom portion of the distributor. The o-ring failure leads to leaking oil at the lower part of the distributor and causes a series of complications.
In some modern four-stroke engines, the cylinder head cover houses the upper actuation elements of the engine control unit as well as the valves in the crankcase ventilation with all its peripheral devices.
Furthermore, it safeguards the engine against pollutants such as dirt and other extraneous materials.
Rubber grommets are utilized to prevent the entry or exit of holes and to minimize vibration. Inserting a rubber grommet will help eliminate sharp edges and protect the engine valve from passing through a hole. The rubber grommet will help shield the valve from damage.
The cam pulley is one of the timing components in an automobile’s engine that governs the rotational speed of the camshaft, the component that controls the poppet valves responsible for air intake and exhaust in the cylinders.
The cam pulley engages with the timing chain to turn the camshaft in time with the crankshaft.
An oil filter in a car is responsible for the removal of waste, It captures dangerous pollutants like dirt and even metal particles suspended in the motor oil.
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In the absence of an oil filter, dangerous contaminants will find their way into the motor oil and destroy the engine. Removal of unwanted particles makes the motor oil cleaner for an extended period.
A timing belt pulley is a specific type of pulley that features pockets or teeth around its outer edge on a circular disk.
The teeth or pockets of the pulley are not intended for power transmission. Instead, they serve pivotal functions such as engaging the pulley belt, helping with timing, and preventing misalignment.
A car’s water pump functions as a belt-driven pump and receives its rotational power from the crankshaft of the engine. Constructed like a centrifuge, the water pump pulls the cooled fluid from the radiator and through the center inlet of the pump.
It then propels the fluid outwards to the engine and subsequently into the cooling system of the car.
The oil drain plug can normally be found on the oil pan at the base of the engine. It serves the purpose of draining the used oil from the pan during an oil change. If you have a leak at your oil plug, in certain situations, it can be as easy as changing the gasket.
The same might be true if the bolt or oil pan has been cross-threaded, because then you will likely have to get a new oil drain plug. In some instances, an oversized oil drain plug will cut new threads and therefore spare you the trouble of replacing the entire oil pan.
With so many mechanisms performing many tasks at lightning speed, over time, parts may begin to wear, causing your car to behave differently. Here are the most common engine problems and their associated symptoms:
Car engines may seem complicated, but their task is simple: to propel your vehicle forward. With so many components working together to create this motion, your vehicle must receive proper maintenance to ensure its longevity.
Regularly scheduled oil changes, fluid flushes, and changing belts and hoses at the recommended time are a great way to help prevent the unfortunate circumstance of a failed engine.
Read more: 50 Basic Parts of a Car With Name & Diagram
FAQs.
Have you ever opened the hood of your car and wondered what was going on in there? A car engine can look like a big confusing jumble of metal, tubes and wires to the uninitiated.
You might want to know what's going on simply out of curiosity. Or perhaps you are buying a new car, and you hear things like "2.5-liter incline four" and "turbocharged" and "start/stop technology." What does all of that mean?
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In this article, we'll discuss the basic idea behind an engine and then go into detail about how all the pieces fit together, what can go wrong and how to increase performance.
The purpose of a gasoline car engine is to convert gasoline into motion so that your car can move. Currently the easiest way to create motion from gasoline is to burn the gasoline inside an engine. Therefore, a car engine is an internal combustion engine — combustion takes place internally.
Two things to note:
Let's look at the internal combustion process in more detail in the next section.
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The principle behind any reciprocating internal combustion engine: If you put a tiny amount of high-energy-density fuel (like gasoline) in a small, enclosed space and ignite it, an incredible amount of energy is released in the form of expanding gas.
You can use that energy for interesting purposes. For example, if you can create a cycle that allows you to set off explosions like this hundreds of times per minute, and if you can harness that energy in a useful way, what you have is the core of a car engine.
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Almost every car with a gasoline engine uses a four-stroke combustion cycle to convert gasoline into motion. The four-stroke approach is also known as the Otto cycle, in honor of Nikolaus Otto, who invented it in . The four strokes are illustrated in the animation. They are:
The piston is connected to the crankshaft by a connecting rod. As the crankshaft revolves, it has the effect of "resetting the cannon." Here's what happens as the engine goes through its cycle:
Now the engine is ready for the next cycle, so it intakes another charge of air and gas.
In an engine, the linear motion of the pistons is converted into rotational motion by the crankshaft. The rotational motion is nice because we plan to turn (rotate) the car's wheels with it anyway.
Now let's look at all the parts that work together to make this happen, starting with the cylinders.
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The core of the engine is the cylinder, with the piston moving up and down inside the cylinder. Single cylinder engines are typical of most lawn mowers, but usually cars have more than one cylinder (four, six and eight cylinders are common). In a multi-cylinder engine, the cylinders usually are arranged in one of three ways: inline, V or flat (also known as horizontally opposed or boxer), as shown in the figures to the left.
So that inline four we mentioned at the beginning is an engine with four cylinders arranged in a line. Different configurations have different advantages and disadvantages in terms of smoothness, manufacturing cost and shape characteristics. These advantages and disadvantages make them more suitable for certain vehicles.
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Let's look at some key engine parts in more detail.
The spark plug supplies the spark that ignites the air/fuel mixture so that combustion can occur. The spark must happen at just the right moment for things to work properly.
The intake and exhaust valves open at the proper time to let in air and fuel and to let out exhaust. Note that both valves are closed during compression and combustion so that the combustion chamber is sealed.
A piston is a cylindrical piece of metal that moves up and down inside the cylinder.
Piston rings provide a sliding seal between the outer edge of the piston and the inner edge of the cylinder. The rings serve two purposes:
Most cars that "burn oil" and have to have a quart added every 1,000 miles are burning it because the engine is old and the rings no longer seal things properly. Many modern vehicles use more advance materials for piston rings. That's one of the reasons why engines last longer and can go longer between oil changes.
The connecting rod connects the piston to the crankshaft. It can rotate at both ends so that its angle can change as the piston moves and the crankshaft rotates.
The crankshaft turns the piston's up-and-down motion into circular motion just like a crank on a jack-in-the-box does.
The sump surrounds the crankshaft. It contains some amount of oil, which collects in the bottom of the sump (the oil pan).
Next, we'll learn what can go wrong with engines.
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So you go out one morning and your engine will turn over but it won't start. What could be wrong? Now that you know how an engine works, you can understand the basic things that can keep an engine from running.
Three fundamental things can happen: a bad fuel mix, lack of compression or lack of spark. Beyond that, thousands of minor things can create problems, but these are the "big three." Based on the simple engine we have been discussing, here is a quick rundown on how these problems affect your engine:
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A bad fuel mix can occur in several ways:
Lack of compression: If the charge of air and fuel cannot be compressed properly, the combustion process will not work like it should. Lack of compression might occur for these reasons:
The most common "hole" in a cylinder occurs where the top of the cylinder (holding the valves and spark plug and also known as the cylinder head) attaches to the cylinder itself. Generally, the cylinder and the cylinder head bolt together with a thin gasket pressed between them to ensure a good seal. If the gasket breaks down, small holes develop between the cylinder and the cylinder head, and these holes cause leaks.
Lack of spark: The spark might be nonexistent or weak for several reasons:
Many other things can go wrong. For example:
In a properly running engine, all of these factors are working fine. Perfection is not required to make an engine run, but you'll probably notice when things are less than perfect.
As you can see, an engine has a number of systems that help it do its job of converting fuel into motion. We'll look at the different subsystems used in engines in the next few sections.
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Most engine subsystems can be implemented using different technologies, and better technologies can improve the performance of the engine. Let's look at all of the different subsystems used in modern engines, beginning with the valve train.
The valve train consists of the valves and a mechanism that opens and closes them. The opening and closing system is called a camshaft. The camshaft has lobes on it that move the valves up and down, as shown in Figure 5.
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Most modern engines have what are called overhead cams. This means that the camshaft is located above the valves, as shown in Figure 5. The cams on the shaft activate the valves directly or through a very short linkage. Older engines used a camshaft located in the sump near the crankshaft.
A timing belt or timing chain links the crankshaft to the camshaft so that the valves are in sync with the pistons. The camshaft is geared to turn at one-half the rate of the crankshaft. Many high-performance engines have four valves per cylinder (two for intake, two for exhaust), and this arrangement requires two camshafts per bank of cylinders, hence the phrase "dual overhead cams."
The ignition system (Figure 6) produces a high-voltage electrical charge and transmits it to the spark plugs via ignition wires. The charge first flows to a distributor, which you can easily find under the hood of most cars. The distributor has one wire going in the center and four, six or eight wires (depending on the number of cylinders) coming out of it. These ignition wires send the charge to each spark plug. The engine is timed so that only one cylinder receives a spark from the distributor at a time. This approach provides maximum smoothness.
We'll look at how your car's engine starts, cools and circulates air in the next section.
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The cooling system in most cars consists of the radiator and water pump. Water circulates through passages around the cylinders and then travels through the radiator to cool it off. In a few cars (most notably pre- Volkswagen Beetles), as well as most motorcycles and lawn mowers, the engine is air-cooled instead (You can tell an air-cooled engine by the fins adorning the outside of each cylinder to help dissipate heat.). Air-cooling makes the engine lighter but hotter, generally decreasing engine life and overall performance.
So now you know how and why your engine stays cool. But why is air circulation so important? Most cars are normally aspirated, which means that air flows through an air filter and directly into the cylinders. High-performance and modern fuel-efficient engines are either turbocharged or supercharged, which means that air coming into the engine is first pressurized (so that more air/fuel mixture can be squeezed into each cylinder) to increase performance. The amount of pressurization is called boost. A turbocharger uses a small turbine attached to the exhaust pipe to spin a compressing turbine in the incoming air stream. A supercharger is attached directly to the engine to spin the compressor.
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Since the turbocharger is reusing hot exhaust to spin the turbine and compress the air, it increases the power from smaller engines. So a fuel-sipping four-cylinder can see horsepower that you might expect a six-cylinder engine to put out while getting 10 to 30 percent better fuel economy.
Increasing your engine's performance is great, but what exactly happens when you turn the key to start it? The starting system consists of an electric starter motor and a starter solenoid. When you turn the ignition key, the starter motor spins the engine a few revolutions so that the combustion process can start. It takes a powerful motor to spin a cold engine. The starter motor must overcome:
Because so much energy is needed and because a car uses a 12-volt electrical system, hundreds of amps of electricity must flow into the starter motor. The starter solenoid is essentially a large electronic switch that can handle that much current. When you turn the ignition key, it activates the solenoid to power the motor.
Next, we'll look at the engine subsystems that maintain what goes in (oil and fuel) and what comes out (exhaust and emissions).
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When it comes to day-to-day car maintenance, your first concern is probably the amount of gas in your car. How does the gas that you put in power the cylinders? The engine's fuel system pumps gas from the gas tank and mixes it with air so that the proper air/fuel mixture can flow into the cylinders. Fuel is delivered in modern vehicles in two common ways: port fuel injection and direct fuel injection.
In a fuel-injected engine, the right amount of fuel is injected individually into each cylinder either right above the intake valve (port fuel injection) or directly into the cylinder (direct fuel injection). Older vehicles were carbureted, where gas and air were mixed by a carburetor as the air flowed into the engine.
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Oil also plays an important part. The lubrication system makes sure that every moving part in the engine gets oil so that it can move easily. The two main parts needing oil are the pistons (so they can slide easily in their cylinders) and any bearings that allow things like the crankshaft and camshafts to rotate freely. In most cars, oil is sucked out of the oil pan by the oil pump, run through the oil filter to remove any grit, and then squirted under high pressure onto bearings and the cylinder walls. The oil then trickles down into the sump, where it is collected again and the cycle repeats.
Now that you know about some of the stuff that you put in your car, let's look at some of the stuff that comes out of it. The exhaust system includes the exhaust pipe and the muffler. Without a muffler, what you would hear is the sound of thousands of small explosions coming out your tailpipe. A muffler dampens the sound.
The emission control system in modern cars consists of a catalytic converter, a collection of sensors and actuators, and a computer to monitor and adjust everything. For example, the catalytic converter uses a catalyst and oxygen to burn off any unused fuel and certain other chemicals in the exhaust. An oxygen sensor in the exhaust stream makes sure there is enough oxygen available for the catalyst to work and adjusts things if necessary.
Besides gas, what else powers your car? The electrical system consists of a battery and an alternator. The alternator is connected to the engine by a belt and generates electricity to recharge the battery. The battery makes 12-volt power available to everything in the car needing electricity (the ignition system, radio, headlights, windshield wipers, power windows and seats, computers, etc.) through the vehicle's wiring.
Now that you know all about the main engine subsystems, let's look at ways that you can boost engine performance.
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Using all of this information, you can begin to see that there are lots of different ways to make an engine perform better. Car manufacturers are constantly playing with all of the following variables to make an engine more powerful and/or more fuel efficient.
Increase displacement: More displacement means more power because you can burn more gas during each revolution of the engine. You can increase displacement by making the cylinders bigger or by adding more cylinders. Twelve cylinders seems to be the practical limit.
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Increase the compression ratio: Higher compression ratios produce more power, up to a point. The more you compress the air/fuel mixture, however, the more likely it is to spontaneously burst into flame (before the spark plug ignites it). Higher-octane gasolines prevent this sort of early combustion. That is why high-performance cars generally need high-octane gasoline — their engines are using higher compression ratios to get more power.
Stuff more into each cylinder: If you can cram more air (and therefore fuel) into a cylinder of a given size, you can get more power from the cylinder (in the same way that you would by increasing the size of the cylinder) without increasing the fuel required for combustion. Turbochargers and superchargers pressurize the incoming air to effectively cram more air into a cylinder.
Cool the incoming air: Compressing air raises its temperature. However, you would like to have the coolest air possible in the cylinder because the hotter the air is, the less it will expand when combustion takes place. Therefore, many turbocharged and supercharged cars have an intercooler. An intercooler is a special radiator through which the compressed air passes to cool it off before it enters the cylinder.
Let air come in more easily: As a piston moves down in the intake stroke, air resistance can rob power from the engine. Air resistance can be lessened dramatically by putting two intake valves in each cylinder. Some newer cars are also using polished intake manifolds to eliminate air resistance there. Bigger air filters can also improve air flow.
Let exhaust exit more easily: If air resistance makes it hard for exhaust to exit a cylinder, it robs the engine of power. Air resistance can be lessened by adding a second exhaust valve to each cylinder. A car with two intake and two exhaust valves has four valves per cylinder, which improves performance. When you hear a car ad tell you the car has four cylinders and 16 valves, what the ad is saying is that the engine has four valves per cylinder.
If the exhaust pipe is too small or the muffler has a lot of air resistance, this can cause back-pressure, which has the same effect. High-performance exhaust systems use headers, big tail pipes and free-flowing mufflers to eliminate back-pressure in the exhaust system. When you hear that a car has "dual exhaust," the goal is to improve the flow of exhaust by having two exhaust pipes instead of one.
Make everything lighter: Lightweight parts help the engine perform better. Each time a piston changes direction, it uses up energy to stop the travel in one direction and start it in another. The lighter the piston, the less energy it takes. This results in better fuel efficiency as well as better performance.
Inject the fuel: Fuel injection allows very precise metering of fuel to each cylinder. This improves performance and fuel economy.
In the next sections, we'll answer some common engine-related questions submitted by readers.
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Here is a set of engine-related questions from readers and their answers:
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The number of cylinders that an engine contains is an important factor in the overall performance of the engine. Each cylinder contains a piston that pumps inside of it and those pistons connect to and turn the crankshaft. The more pistons there are pumping, the more combustive events are taking place during any given moment. That means that more power can be generated in less time.
Four-cylinder engines commonly come in "straight" or "inline" configurations while 6-cylinder engines are usually configured in the more compact "V" shape, and thus are referred to as V6 engines. V6 engines were the engine of choice for American automakers because they're powerful and quiet, but turbocharging technologies have made four-cylinder engines more powerful and attractive to buyers.
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Historically, American auto consumers turned their noses up at four-cylinder engines, believing them to be slow, weak, unbalanced and short on acceleration. However, when Japanese auto makers, such as Honda and Toyota, began installing highly efficient four-cylinder engines in their cars in the s and '90s, Americans found a new appreciation for the compact engine. Japanese models, such as the Toyota Camry, began quickly outselling comparable American models
Modern four-cylinder engines use lighter materials and turbocharging technology, like Ford's EcoBoost engine, to eke V-6 performance from more efficient four-cylinder engines. Advanced aerodynamics and technologies, such as those used by Mazda in its SKYACTIV designs, put less stress on these smaller turbocharged engines, further increasing their efficiency and performance.
As for the future of the V6, in recent years the disparity between four-cylinder and V6 engines has lessened considerably. But V-6 engines still have their uses, and not only in performance cars. Trucks that are used to tow trailers or haul loads need the power of a V-6 to get those jobs done. Power in those cases is more important than efficiency.
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