The Cars Engine essays

The Car's Engine essays The function of a cars engine is to make a car move. Engines come in a variety of strengths and speeds. All modern engines are made of essential parts. A description of the engines design illustrates its function. The core of the engine is the cylinder. The piston moves up and down inside the cylinder. The engine described here has one cylinder, but engines vary from four all the way to twelve. 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). 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. 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: they prevent the fuel/air mixture and exhaust in the combustion chamber from leaking into the sump during compression and combustion, and they keep oil in the sump from leaking into the combustion area, where it would be burned and lost. 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. The combustion chamber is the area where compression and combustion take place. As the piston moves up and down, you can see that the size of the combustion chamber changes. It has some maximum volume as well as a minimum volume. The difference between the maximum and minimum is called the displacement and is measured in liters or CCs (Cubic Centimeters, where 1,000 cubic centimeters equals a liter). So if you have a 4-cylinder engine and each cylinder displaces half a liter, then the entire engine is a "2.0 liter engine." If each cylinder displaces half a liter and there are six cylinders arr...