HOW TO SWAPPING OUT SPARK PLUGS.

Swapping Out Spark Plugs: An Overview

Changing spark plugs isn't too hard, even for the mechanically disinclined. If you're careful, you should have little trouble.

How do you know if your plugs need to be changed? The surest sign is on your odometer. Spark plugs usually need to be changed every 30,000 miles (48,280 kilometers). Some high-performance plugs can go as long as 100,000 miles (160,934 km) before replacement. If you don't know when yours were last changed or if you have an engine that runs roughly or has recently exhibited a decrease in fuel economy, well, that could mean that your engine might benefit from some fresh, clean sparks. As always, check the owner's manual to see what works best for your vehicle.

SPARK PLUG PARTS; THE TOP TO BOTTOM TOUR.

Spark Plug Parts: The Top-to-Bottom Tour

At the top of the spark plug sits the connector, or terminal. This is where the spark plug wire attaches. The terminal connects inside the plug to the copper core of the center electrode, which is surrounded by insulation.

SPARK PLUG BASICS

Spark Plug Basics

It seems pretty obvious that a spark plug provides the spark that burns the fuel, but its secondary role as a heat dissipater is equally important. A spark plug's ability to transfer heat to the cars cooling system is based on the length of the insulator nose and the materials used for the center electrode and the insulator.

How Spark Plugs Work

Spark plugs are one of the few things that an amateur mechanic can repair without much trouble

As Engine and their electronics become more complex, one of the few things left to hobbyists and auto enthusiasts who like a little grease under their fingernails is the ability to change their spark plugs. Although just about every other car repair out there takes a code reader and a college degree to diagnose and fix, spark plugs remain accessible and easy to understand.

WATER PUMP ( CENTRIFUGAL TYPE )

Water Pump

                                    A centrifugal pump like the one used in your car.

HOW DOES THE THERMOSTAT WORKS IN CAR.

How does the thermostat in a car's cooling system work?

Any liquid-cooled car engine has a small device called the thermostat that sits between the engine and the radiator. The thermostat in most cars is about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Its job is to block the flow of coolant to the radiator until the engine has warmed up. When the engine is cold, no coolant flows through the engine. Once the engine reaches its operating temperature (generally about 200 degrees F, 95 degrees C), the thermostat opens. By letting the engine warm up as quickly as possible, the thermostat reduces engine wear, deposits and emissions.

SUPERCHARGER ADVANTAGES

Supercharger Advantages

The biggest advantage of having a supercharger is the increased horsepower. Attach a supercharger to an otherwise normal Car or Truck, and it will behave like a vehicle with a larger, more powerful engine.

But what if someone is trying to decide between a supercharger and a turbocharger? This question is hotly debated by auto engineers and car enthusiasts, but in general, superchargers offer a few advantages over turbochargers.

Superchargers do not suffer lag -- a term used to describe how much time passes between the driver depressing the gas pedal and the engine's response. Turbochargers suffer from lag because it takes a few moments before the exhaust gases reach a velocity that is sufficient to drive the impeller/turbine. Superchargers have no lag time because they are driven directly by the crankshaft. Certain superchargers are more efficient at lower RPM, while others are more efficient at higher RPM. Roots and twin-screw superchargers, for example, provide more power at lower RPM. Centrifugal superchargers, which become more efficient as the impeller spins faster, provide more power at higher RPM.

Installing a turbocharger requires extensive modification of the exhaust system, but superchargers can be bolted to the top or side of the engine. That makes them cheaper to install and easier to service and maintain.

CENTRIFUGAL SUPERCHARGERS

Centrifugal Superchargers

ProCharger D1SC centrifugal supercharger

A centrifugal supercharger powers an impeller -- a device similar to a rotor -- at very high speeds to quickly draw air into a small compressor housing. Impeller speeds can reach 50,000 to 60,000 RPM. As the air is drawn in at the hub of the impeller, centrifugal force causes it to radiate outward. The air leaves the impeller at high speed, but low pressure. A diffuser -- a set of stationary vanes that surround the impeller -- converts the high-speed, low-pressure air to low-speed, high-pressure air. Air molecules slow down when they hit the vanes, which reduces the velocity of the airflow and increases pressure.

TWIN SCREW SUPERCHARGERS

Twin-screw Superchargers

Twin-screw supercharger

A twin-screw supercharger operates by pulling air through a pair of meshing lobes that resemble a set of worm gears. Like the Roots supercharger, the air inside a twin-screw supercharger is trapped in pockets created by the rotor lobes. But a twin-screw supercharger compresses the air inside the rotor housing. That's because the rotors have a conical taper, which means the air pockets decrease in size as air moves from the fill side to the discharge side. As the air pockets shrink, the air is squeezed into a smaller space.

ROOTS SUPERCHARGERS

Roots Superchargers

The Eaton supercharger, a modified Roots supercharger.

There are three types of superchargers: Roots, twin-screw and centrifugal. The main difference is how they move air to the intake manifold of the engine. Roots and twin-screw superchargers use different types of meshing lobes, and a centrifugal supercharger uses an impeller, which draws air in. Although all of these designs provide a boost, they differ considerably in their efficiency. Each type of supercharger is available in different sizes, depending on whether you just want to give your car a boost or compete in a race.

The Roots supercharger is the oldest design. Philander and Francis Roots patented the design in 1860 as a machine that would help ventilate mine shafts. In 1900, Gottleib Daimler included a Roots supercharger in a car engine.

BASIC SUPERCHARGER

A basic engine with the addition of a supercharger.

An ordinary four-stroke engine dedicates one stroke to the process of air intake. There are three steps in this process:

11.     The piston moves down.

22.     This creates a vacuum.

33.     Air at atmospheric pressure is sucked into the combustion chamber.

Once air is drawn into the engine, it must be combined with fuel to form the charge -- a packet of potential energy that can be turned into useful kinetic energy through a chemical reaction known as combustion. The spark plug initiates this chemical reaction by igniting the charge. As the fuel undergoes oxidation, a great deal of energy is released. The force of this explosion, concentrated above the cylinder head, drives the piston down and creates a reciprocating motion that is eventually transferred to the wheels.

How Superchargers Work

Since the invention of the internal combustion engine, automotive engineers, speed junkies and race car designers have been searching for ways to boost its power. ­One way to add power is to build a bigger engine. But bigger engines, which weigh more and cost more to build and maintain, are not always better.

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USING TWO TURBOCHARGERS

Using Two Turbochargers & More Turbo Parts

Some engines use two turbochargers of different sizes. The smaller one spins up to speed very quickly, reducing lag, while the bigger one takes over at higher engine speeds to provide more boost.

When air is compressed, it heats up; and when air heats up, it expands. So some of the pressure increase from a turbocharger is the result of heating the air before it goes into the engine. In order to increase the power of the engine, the goal is to get more air molecules into the cylinder, not necessarily more air pressure.

TURBOCHARGER PARTS

Turbocharger Parts

One of the main problems with turbochargers is that they do not provide an immediate power boost when you step on the gas. It takes a second for the turbine to get up to speed before boost is produced. This results in a feeling of lag when you step on the gas, and then the car lunges ahead when the turbo gets moving.

Turbochargers provide boost to engines at high speeds

TURBOCHARGER DESIGN

Turbocharger Design

The turbocharger is bolted to the exhaust manifold of the engine. The exhaust from the cylinders spins the turbine, which works like a gas turbine engine. The turbine is connected by a shaft to the compressor, which is located between the air filter and the intake manifold. The compressor pressurizes the air going into the pistons.

How a turbocharger is plumbed in a car

TURBOCHARGERS AND ENGINES

Turbochargers and Engines

One of the surest ways to get more power out of an engine is to increase the amount of air and fuel that it can burn. One way to do this is to add cylinders or make the current cylinders bigger. Sometimes these changes may not be feasible -- a turbo can be a simpler, more compact way to add power, especially for an aftermarket accessory.

Turbochargers allow an engine to burn more fuel and air by packing more into the existing cylinders. The typical boost provided by a turbocharger is 6 to 8 pounds per square inch (psi). Since normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi at sea level, you can see that you are getting about 50 percent more air into the engine. Therefore, you would expect to get 50 percent more power. It's not perfectly efficient, so you might get a 30- to 40-percent improvement instead.

One cause of the inefficiency comes from the fact that the power to spin the turbine is not free. Having a turbine in the exhaust flow increases the restriction in the exhaust. This means that on the exhaust stroke, the engine has to push against a higher back-pressure. This subtracts a little bit of power from the cylinders that are firing at the same time.­

How Turbochargers Work

When people talk about cars or high-performance sports cars, the topic of turbochargers usually comes up. Turbochargers also appear on large diesel engines. A turbo can significantly boost an engine's horsepower without significantly increasing its weight, which is the huge benefit that makes turbos so popular!

In this article, we'll learn how a turbocharger increases the power output of an engine while surviving extreme operating conditions. We'll also learn how waste gates, ceramic turbine blades and ball bearing help turbochargers do their job even better. Turbochargers are a type of forced induction system. They compress the air flowing into the engine. The advantage of compressing the air is that it lets the engine squeeze more air into a cylinder, and more air means that more fuel can be added. Therefore, you get more power from each explosion in each cylinder. A turbocharged engine produces more power overall than the same engine without the charging. This can significantly improve the power-to-weight ratio for the engine

In order to achieve this boost, the turbocharger uses the exhaust flow from the engine to spin a turbine, which in turn spins an air pump. The turbine in the turbocharger spins at speeds of up to 150,000 rotations per minute (rpm) -- that's about 30 times faster than most car engines can go. And since it is hooked up to the exhaust, the temperatures in the turbine are also very high.

THE FUTURE OF POWER STEERING

The Future of Power Steering

Since the power-steering pump on most cars today runs constantly, pumping fluid all the time, it wastes horsepower. This wasted power translates into wasted fuel.

You can expect to see several innovations that will improve fuel economy. One of the coolest ideas on the drawing board is the "steer-by-wire" or "drive-by-wire" system. These systems would completely eliminate the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the steering, replacing it with a purely electronic control system. Essentially, the steering wheel would work like the one you can buy for your home computer to play games. It would contain sensors that tell the car what the driver is doing with the wheel, and have some motors in it to provide the driver with feedback on what the car is doing. The output of these sensors would be used to control a motorized steering system. This would free up space in the engine compartment by eliminating the steering shaft. It would also reduce vibration inside the car.

General Motors has introduced a concept car, the Hy-wire that features this type of driving system. One of the most exciting things about the drive-by-wire system in the GM Hy-wire is that you can fine-tune vehicle handling without changing anything in the car's mechanical components -- all it takes to adjust the steering is some new computer software. In future drive-by-wire vehicles, you will most likely be able to configure the controls exactly to your liking by pressing a few buttons, just like you might adjust the seat position in a car today. It would also be possible in this sort of system to store distinct control preferences for each driver in the family.

In the past fifty years, car steering systems haven't changed much. But in the next decade, we'll see advances in car steering that will result in more efficient cars and a more comfortable ride.

POWER STEERING.

Power Steering

There are a couple of key components in power steering in addition to the rack-and-pinion or recirculating-ball mechanism.

RECIRCULATING BALL STEERING

Recirculating-ball Steering

Recirculating-ball steering is used on many trucks and SUVs today. The linkage that turns the wheels is slightly different than on a rack-and-pinion system.