The Internal Combustion Engine

The engine. The heart of the car. The driving force behind the industrial revolution. Invented in France around 1859 by Etienne Lenoir, the internal combustion engine as we know it today has evolved through over 150 years of engineering and innovation. One of the first 2-cylinders produced an impressive 5 horsepower, steadily moving a horseless carriage along at a top speed of around 6 miles an hour. Today's top vehicles are a far cry from that world, with drag-racing cars putting out a thunderous 3-4000 horsepower. The same basic designs are used in container ships' diesel engines, with the record holder turning an unfathomable 108,000 horsepower and over 5 million ft-lbs of torque. It's fairly safe at this point to say the engine will remain a dominant power source for many years into the future.

What makes the engine tick, though? Regardless of what configuration a particular engine is setup in, almost all engines use the same design elements. Contained within a metal block, fuel and air are mixed in cylinders then burned to force pistons down, turning a crankshaft. Most engines use 3-4 valves, one or two letting fuel and air into the cylinder, then the others letting the burnt exhaust out to allow the cycle to begin again. An electric spark plug is used to ignite gasoline-based engines. Diesel engines, it should be noted, use glow plugs to warm the fuel when the engine is started, but once running the heat caused by compressing the fuel/air mixture is enough to cause ignition.

Among the many other components of an engine are the cooling system - a radiator cools water that moves through pathways in the engine block to keep it from overheating, just as oil is pumped through different pathways to keep all the moving parts from grinding or seizing in place. A camshaft is tied to the crankshaft, pushing rods and rocker arms to control the valves and spark plugs, and an electronic control unit controls the fuel injectors. In older engines a carburetor was used to mix fuel and air for the whole engine.

Hopefully this article hasn't been too technical for anyone, but if there are any questions then by all means comment below. There are many variants of the engine such as 4-cylinders, V6 and V8 models, and even the unique rotary engine (see Wikipedia). I appreciate my followers' sharing and commenting, and as always, have a good one!

Luke

Headlights Ep. 2

The Dodge Charger: Mopar's answer to the then-new concept of musclecars first took shape in 1966, but due to styling and design flaws first really became popular with the release of the 1971 model. Production ceased in 1987 until the model was reintroduced as a sedan in 2006. Taking the starring role in the TV classic, The Dukes of Hazzard, the Charger known as the General Lee earned its place in history, as well as the hearts of American car lovers everywhere. With the widespread adoption of the new Charger sedan by police & sheriff departments across America, the car became even better well known and instantly recognizable - albeit as a source of concern for fast drivers - than ever before.

Turbo 101

So let's talk about something cool - turbochargers and superchargers. Both are common terms but not usually well understood, and both are considered forced air systems. In essence they work by forcing more air into the engine. Since internal combustion engines - every car except a plug-in electric - work by burning fuel and air together, adding air either creates a fuel-lean environment. This means less of the fuel escapes unburned and the engine is more efficient and powerful. Engine builders use this in two ways - they can use a smaller engine and get better fuel economy or a larger engine and get significantly more power.

The most common type of forced-air system is a turbocharger (above). A turbocharger has two connected fans. Exhaust flows through one fan, forcing both to turn. The other fan compresses fresh clean air into the engine. Since compressing air increases its temperature, an intercooler (basically a second radiator) is used to cool the air before it hits the engine. One issue some turbos have is called lag - the time between the driver pressing the gas and the turbo spooling up to generate boost (compressed air). While modern technology has reduced lag on its own, the best solution is to use two small turbos instead of a single larger one. This is called a compound or twin turbo system.

The second type of forced-air setup is a supercharger. Unlike turbochargers, these use direct engine power from a belt to drive the compressor wheel. The two common types of supercharger are centrifugal (left) and rotary-screw (right). Since they don't rely on the exhaust to drive the compressor, superchargers are virtually lag-free. The trade-off is that the supercharger consumes some of the engine power as a parasitic loss.

So to wrap things up, I think we've safely busted the video-game  myth that you can turn a turbo on or off - those features more accurately represent nitrous (a topic for another day!). While it's obvious that forced-air systems provide a huge advantage, the value they provide was proved when their use was banned by Formula One and later NASCAR. In the drag racing world, however, few if any winning vehicles can be found naturally aspirated (non-forced air). Hopefully this post wasn't more confusing than helpful, but please feel free to leave questions below and they'll be answered as soon as possible. Thanks for reading, and as always, have a good one!

Luke

Headlights Ep. 1

For the very first entry into our weekly car spotlight, we present a genuine and proven legend - the Chevrolet Corvette.

 

Corvette has been around a long while - the first one was built in 1953 - and with the new C7 generation, it enters a legendary status as one of the few true American supercars. Corvette was created by Harley Earl, but some of the notable designers that worked on later versions include Larry Shinoda, and the legendary Zora Arkus-Duntov. The future is bright for the corvette, as America is no less in love with the roar of the wind, the squeal of the tires, and the scream of a V8 than they were over 60 years ago. 

Luke

P.S. Please comment below if you'd like more or less content in future Headlights episodes. Thanks for sharing!

End of Hiatus

Ladies & gentlemen, please welcome back to the internet LugNut Auto Blog! I owe my follower an apology for the hiatus, I unexpectedly left Skillman and am now employed at Bill Estes Chevy, Buick, GMC in Lebanon, IN. In the process of the move I lost all my pre-written articles and notes. This works out well for my followers in that I now have even more information available to me about different vehicles! My new contact info will be appearing on the sidebar shortly. In conclusion lets just say that I am scrambling to get some new material written and it should be back on track by Monday the 28^th.

Wishing you all a merry Christmas!

Luke

Welcome!

Welcome to Lug Nut! I’ve attempted to start a blog a few times before, but with little material those attempts quickly failed. So to start things off, a quick little bio. My name is Luke Orr, originally from a little Indiana town north of Indianapolis. I got my first taste of sales in May 2015 at Advance Auto parts, then in July 2015 I started selling cars at Ray Skillman Hyundai. I’ll tell you a little more about us later, but I will say now that the managers and staff at Ray Skillman do an excellent job of taking care of both customers and employees, and it’s safe to say the stereotypical car salesman is dead and gone here.

As to the purpose of Lug Nut, I hope to help educate and inform my readers by comparing and contrasting different cars (albeit with a slight bias towards Hyundai). I’ll also post reviews of different cars, and explain how different technologies and car parts work. This blog was mainly inspired when I met a man who had bought a car from us a few years ago, but had very little knowledge of the different features that made his car special. After explaining a turbocharger to him, he mentioned that it was “nice to have somebody explain it, instead of taking for granted that he knew what they were talking about”. So often in the sales business the salespeople become so accustomed to people researching or having previous experience with cars, and so forget to explain the increasingly complex parts that make modern cars so much better than their predecessors.

I plan to write one major post each week, with smaller articles featuring a “Car of the Day” published on Thursdays. As I don’t have a lot of writing experience, expect future articles to improve in quality while I hone my craft. As of now, I’ll likely release the main article on Mondays, although I’m not set on a particular time just yet.

By way of conclusion, I do want to clarify that this blog is not being written to sell cars - it’s being written for my friends and previous customers, with the goal of educating people as to what exactly a dual-clutch transmission is, or why a Hyundai Sonata is a better-designed car than a Ford Fusion, and other things of that nature. I do want to make sure to thank all my readers and future readers, and remind y’all to share this blog around! If you have any questions, comments, or other thoughts be sure to leave a comment, email me at lugnutblog@gmail.com, or you can also simply call me at 765-482-3515 (ask for Luke). I’ll also gladly reward readers for referrals - just make sure the customer you’re referring gives me your name and number, and should they buy a car, a $100 check will come your way as soon as the deal is processed. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

Luke