How Cars Work The Workings Of A Car Explained
The process by which a car works is a lot simpler than you may think. When a driver turns a key in the ignition:
-
The car battery powers up sending
-
Power to the starter motor, which
-
Turns the crankshaft, which
-
Gets the pistons moving
-
With the pistons moving the engine fires up and ticks over
-
A fan draws air into the engine via an air filter
-
The air filter removes dirt and grit from the air
-
The cleaned air is drawn into a chamber where fuel (petrol or diesel) is added
-
This fuel-air mix (a vaporised gas) is stored in the chamber
-
The driver presses the accelerator pedal
-
The throttle valve is opened
-
The gas-air mix passes through an intake manifold and is distributed, through intake valves, into the cylinders. The camshaft controls the opening and closing of the valves.
-
The distributor makes the spark plugs spark, which ignites the fuel-air mix. The resulting explosion forces a piston to move down which in turn causes the crankshaft to rotate.
What happens in the cylinders is the magic that gives power and motion to the car wheels. Most car engines use a four-stroke combustion cycle. This cycle starts with piston at the top of the cylinder. Then
Power cycle
- spark from a spark plug ignites the fuel-air mix. The explosion forces the piston down the cylinder.
Exhaust cycle
- the exhaust valve opens and the piston moves back to the top of the cylinder which forces the exhaust fumes out.
The bottom of each piston is attached to the crankshaft.
As the pistons are forced up and down they rotate the crankshaft, which after sending the power through the transmission, turns wheels.
Most cars have at least four cylinders. More powerful cars have more. For example a V6 has six cylinders and a V8 has eight.
The harder a driver presses on the accelerator pedal the more fuel-air mix is passed into the cylinders and the more power is produced.
What Are Revolutions Per Minute?
The four-stroke cycle repeats itself thousand of times a minute. These repetitions are more commonly known as Revs.
A rev counter tells you how many thousand times per minute the cycle is repeated.
