How does a car engine work?

Question

Can anybody give me a detailed explanation of the different parts of an engine, how they work, and what effects they have on other parts of the car that allow it to eventually move? I'm no engineer, in fact, I have next to no mechanical know-how, so imagine you're talking to a very small child...
Thanks.

Answer 1

This is a huge questions and you could write a book on the topic, but here is my basics explaination.

You have the engine block. Inside the engine block is a crankshaft running through the middle of it. Picture a rod running through the middle of a big block of steel. Now this block I'm talking about is hollow, like a box. The rod running in the middle has some offset bits. Picture a handle to turn a jack in the box. Going into a jack in the box is a rod, and at the end you turn it is an offset. The offset part on a crankshaft is inside the engine, only there are several, one for each piston in the engine.

So now think about the how many cycliners an engine has - and for the discussion we will say we are talking about a 4 cyclinder engine, one of the most common today. For each piston there is on offset crank. Attached to each of these is a rod that goes up into each one of the 4 cyclinder holes. At the top of the rod is a piston, which fits perfectly in each of the cyclinders. When the gas explodes the piston is pushed down in the cyclinder and cause the crank to turn around the center of the rods rotation point.

All cars need a fuel system to bring the gas into the cylinder. In modern cars it is fuel injection is the usual system, which is a sprayer the puts a fine mist of gas down the intake manifold into the cylinder head. The cylinder head has two valves. One for intake, and one for exhaust. They are controled by the camshaft, which turns around and has little lobes that open and close the valves to either let the gas in or the exhuast out. The camshaft is connected by a chain or belt to the crank shaft. It is set up so when the piston goes down, the gas valve (intake) is open and the gas gets sucked in. The valve closes and the gas and air are compressed when the piston goes up. Then the sparkplug, which is at the top of the cycliner head, fires, and the gas and air mixture explodes, pushing the piston down (the power stroke), and finally the exhaust valve is open, causing the exhaust to be pushed out with the final up swing of the piston. That is the 4 strokes of operation of most engines. In a 4 cylinder, 4 stroke engine, each cylinder is at a different point at each place stoke which cause a fluid flow of power, with each cylinder pushing the next one into its exhaust stroke while the power stroke is happening next door.

The timing of the spark is controled by the ignition system which is controled in modern cars by a computer that also controls the fuel flow and air mixture. Sometimes the this computer is called the ECM or engine control module.

That is about it for the engine really. There is a transmision too that delivers the engine rotation power to the axels and moves the car. It has a few parts and is more complicated, but basically in an automatic transmition when you put it into gear a set of spininng gears is engaged to reduce the rotation or increase the rotation force of the engine to the wheels. Between the engine and the transmision is a torque converter, which basically is a fluid filled donut with impellers that try to push the transmition to rotate. When you have it in gear with the brake pushed in it can hold back the pressure, but when you let it go and push on the gas pedal the pressure is increased and impellers push the donut in a circle, which then turns the transmision, and then your wheels.

I hope that was simple enough. I know there are great things on the Internet too if you seach for how engines work.

Answer 2

The simplest answer is: fuel (gas or other fuels depending on the motor) is brought into the intake of the motor, there, it is mixed with air so that it burns better,cleaner, etc. This mix of fuel/air is then sent into the "cylinders" the cylinder has a piston that moves up and down (which is driven by and then drives, the crankshaft) as the piston drops to the bottom of the cylinder it creates a vacum which helps pull the fuel/air into the cylinder, then as the piston raises up in the cylinder, it compresses the fuel/air mix which is then ignighted by the spark plug. In essence, the fuel/air explodes in a controlled manner which drives the piston back down, turning the crankshaft. Alternating cylinders ( 4 for a 4 cylinder motor, 6 for a six cylinder etc) take turns driving the driving the crankshaft which turns. this is coupled to the transmission. Their are two types of transmissions, an automatic and a manual. A manual meanst that you have to push in a clutch to disengage the motor from the trannsmission allowing you to manually change gears and release the clutch which re engages the transmission to the motor. An automatic does those functions for you. The transmission drives a shaft which attaches to the rear or front wheels (depending on if it is a front or rear wheel drive vehicle) thru more gears which turn the wheels.
Now, obviously there are many other things happening at the same time, but that is the simplest explanation I can give in this limited space.
Hope it helped.

Answer 3

Ok... I will give you a brief run down but it would take alot more space to answer what you want.

The engine is what gives your car the abilitity to move. When the gas enters into the piston(basically a cylinder) it gets ignited by the spark plug. there is an explosion which moves the piston up and down. This gives the car engergy which allows the car to move.

The transmission takes the energy from the engine and puts into motion which drives the car.

Then you basically just have drive shafts and axles that turn the cars wheels.

That is the basic work down of a car. The remaining pieces like the alternator and radiator are important but only help keep the engine running.

Answer 4

This subject is much too detailed to explain here, so... Probably the best place to look is here where NASA explains the basics of an internal combustion engine. Nice pictures and graphics:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/icengine.html

Then more detail is here:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm
and here:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine1.htm

Also, put "Internal Combustion Engine" into any search engine. You'll get LOTS of results.

Good luck

Answer 5

you most likely know more than you think....on a modern engine there are too many interdependant systems to describe in the detail you want, well it would be hopeless..since parts have no meaning to you.
So how to help...my advise is to look on wikipedia as in fact there are several different sorts of engine..

Answer 6

well if you arent interested in this stuff there is no way you will be able to learn all this you will just black out

if you are really interested and you want to learn go to www.howstuffworks.com and type in internal combustion engine

Answer 7

Combustion...type it into your search engine.

Answer 8

Sorry dude if you need to find out try the library.
Ja.

Answer 9

suck, sqeeze, bang, blow!!!
The basic principle of a 4 stroke engine!!!

Answer 10

doing a report for school.......sorry kid, I get paid to tell stories like that. plus this page aint big enough to answer your question.