A Basic Breakdown on How Your Engine Roars
Engines were the topic of the day, and I found myself in the classroom watching my colleague, Emmanuel, deliver an animated and enthusiastic demonstration to the automobile class about what makes them tick.
I can’t seem to shake the image of him pumping his fist up and down, perfectly mimicking the motion of the piston and valves as they drive the rotary motion that turns the wheels. “You can’t just read about it,” he exclaimed, “you have to imagine it to truly understand!”
Let’s go back to the beginning of the class.
One can power a car using an internal combustion engine, an electric motor, or a combo pack (Hybrid). But in Emmanuel’s class and this article, we’re talking about the OG of car power: the Internal Combustion Engine, or ICE for short.
They make everything from cars to airplanes fly, thanks to a complex system of parts that work together to turn fuel into motion. We’re talking engine blocks, pistons, cylinders, crankshafts, camshafts, valves, fuel injectors, spark plugs, and exhaust systems — the whole shebang!
Alright, picture this: your engine is like a tiny power plant that fits in your car. When you turn the key in the ignition, the battery sends a surge of electricity to the starter motor, which is like the engine’s personal trainer. The starter motor then controls the engine’s crankshaft and gets it to start rotating the engine’s pistons.
The starter motor hooks up with the flywheel or flexplate, which is attached to the crankshaft and gets it to spin until the engine can run on its own. Once the engine starts running, the starter motor takes a breather and stops spinning.
Now, the crankshaft and pistons get to work, moving up and down inside the cylinders and drawing in air and fuel from the intake manifold. The camshaft, which is like the traffic controller, decides when to let air and fuel into the engine and when to let it out through the valves.
Once the air and fuel mix enters the combustion chamber, the spark plug lights it up, causing a mini-explosion that pushes the piston down and sets the crankshaft in motion, generating energy to power your ride.
This was where Emmanuel’s dance came in LOL
But that’s not the end of the story. As the piston moves back up, it compresses the air and fuel mixture, and the exhaust valves open, allowing the burned gases to escape out of the exhaust system. The fuel injectors then release more fuel, which mixes with the incoming air, and the process starts again.
So, once fuel and air have combined to create a small explosion, a whole lot of heat is generated! That’s why the engine has a cooling system: a liquid called coolant flows through the engine block and heads and keeps it cool. This hot liquid is then sent through the radiator, where a fan blows on it to keep it chilled out, and then it’s pumped back through the engine to keep it from melting like an ice cream cone on a hot day.
Now, once the engine has cooled down enough, it’s ready to start moving the car. This is where the transmission comes in — it’s like the middleman between the engine and the wheels. There are two types of transmissions: manual and automatic. In a manual, you shift gears by moving a stick, while in an automatic, the car does it for you based on how fast you’re going.
With the transmission, the energy from the engine is transferred to the car’s wheels. The wheels are connected to axles, which are connected to the transmission, so when the engine spins, the wheels spin too. And that’s how the car moves — by the power of the engine turning the wheels!
So next time you’re cruising down the highway, windows down and music blasting, take a moment to appreciate the incredible engineering that powers your ride. And if you hear a strange knocking sound or your check engine light comes on, don’t panic — just remember that behind all the horsepower and torque is a complex system that might need a little TLC.
Who knows, maybe someday we’ll get to build our own engine
