Universite du sine saloum Mr MENDY

KAOLACK

In this lesson we will try to understand 15 most important car engine

parts and their importance.
Car Engine Parts
You have a car and you know how to drive it.
Is it sufficient?
Shouldn’t be you knowing about different parts of your car and especially
that of engines.
Knowing your Car engine parts and their functions is must for a car
owner, this way you can know your car in a better way.
Here is the ready to go list (car engine parts and functions with pictures).
Remember engine parts are almost same for both two stroke and four
stroke engines.
Cylinder Block

Cylinder Block of four cylinder Engine (Image 01)

 
 Cylinder Block of a two stroke engine (Image 02)
The cylinders of a multi-cylinder engine are cast as a whole and it is
called cylinder block. The cylinder block is the main supporting structure
of an engine.
Cylinder block is mounted with cylinder head at top and crankcase at the
bottom. Both cylinder head and crankcase are attached to the cylinder
block with the help of nuts and bolts.
Cylinder head consists of systems for air, fuel injection and spark plug (in
case of SI engines). Crankcase gives housing to crank and acts as a
sump for lubricating oil.
At every joint for e.g. in between cylinder block and cylinder head a
gasket is placed. A gasket provides a leak free joint and allows heat
conduction between different parts.
Cooling jackets are provided in cylinder head, cylinder block and
crankcase assembly.
The inner surface of cylinder block, which is machined to a cylindrical
shape is called bore or face.
Cylinder
As the name suggests the cylinder is cylindrical in shape. This the actual
place where fuel burning happens and piston reciprocates. A cylinder is
machined with a very high surface finish. It is case hardened, to obtain a
very hard scratch free surface.
Piston
 Piston (Image 03)
 

Position of Piston in cylinder (Image 04)

A piston is a cylindrical component, which fits inside the cylinder and
forms a movable boundary. Piston moves smoothly inside cylinder, with
the help of proper lubrication. A piston makes almost airtight contact with
the cylinder walls, with the help of piston rings. Piston is the first link in
transmitting the gas force into crankshaft.
Combustion chamber
A combustion chamber is an enclosure formed by cylinder walls, cylinder
head and piston head. It is a place where the actual combustion of fuel
takes place.
Intake manifold
 Intake Manifold (Image 05)
Intake manifold is the pipe that brings air or air-fuel mixture into the
combustion chamber for combustion. It is connected to intake valves.
In a diesel engine intake manifold is used for providing air to the engine,
but in petrol engine intake manifold is used to supply fuel air mixture to
the engine or combustion chamber.
From the construction of above manifold one can easily understand that
is a manifold of four cylinder engine, because it has four outlets.
Exhaust manifold
Exhaust manifold is a pipe with takes out exhaust gases from the
combustion chamber after combustion. It is connected to exhaust valves.
Its construction is same as the inlet manifold.
Exhaust manifold has same function in both petrol and diesel engines, in
both the cases it carries exhaust gas.
Intake and Exhaust valves
Intake and Exhaust Valves (Image 06)
Inlet and exhaust valves are used to control and regulate charge (or air)
coming to engine for burning and exhaust gases going out from the
cylinder respectively.
They are provided either on cylinder head or on cylinder walls. They are
commonly have mushroom shaped head.
In case of Petrol engines air and fuel mixture enters through inlet valve,
but in diesel engines only air enters through intake valve. Exhaust valve
in both the cases is meant for letting exhaust gases out.
Intake valves are connected to the intake manifold and exhaust valves
are connected to exhaust manifold.
Spark plug

Spark Plug (Image 07)

A spark plug is a device which is used in spark ignition . Mainly Engines
which use petrol as a fuel are spark ignition engines.
A spark plug creates a spark which is used to initiate combustion . Spark
plug derives its power either from a battery or magneto.
No doubt spark plug is one of the most important car engine parts used
in gasoline engines).

Connecting Rod

Connecting Rod (Image 08)

A connecting rod transfers reciprocating motion from piston head to
crank shaft, where it gets converted into rotary motion. Connecting rod
has two ends small end and big end. Small end is connected to piston
head with the help of gudgeon pin and big end is connected with
crankshaft with the help of crank-pin.
Crankshaft
 Crank Shaft (Image 09)
Crankshaft is one of the most important car engine parts. It converts
reciprocating motion of the piston to rotary motion with the help of
connecting rod. Connecting rod is the same rod which is discussed
above and it transfers power from the piston to the crankshaft.
Piston rings

Piston Rings (Image 10)

Piston rings are fitted in piston to provide leak free contact between
piston and cylinder wall. However, they permit a small amount of
lubricant pass through to provide lubrication for smooth functioning of
piston. They are designed to bear high temperature and thrust.
There are mainly three kinds of piston rings used in engines.
The first one is temperature ring. This piston ring is designed to bear
extreme temperature.
The second one is pressure ring. This piston ring is designed to bear
extreme pressure due to thrust generated by engine.
The third one is Lubrication ring. This piston ring is designed in such a
way that a small amount of lubricant always passes through it to the
combustion chamber.
Gudgeon pin

Gudgeon pin (Image 11)

Gudgeon pin is a special kind of pin which connects small end of
connecting rod to the piston.
Camshaft
 Cam Shaft (Image 12)
 

Cam Shaft Position (Image 13)

The camshaft controls the operation and timing of inlet and exhaust
valves (discussed earlier in the article) with the help of a mechanism
consisting oftiming gears. It also provides drive to ignition system.
Cams
These are integral part of camshafts. Due to cams a camshaft is known
as camshaft. Cams are mounted on the camshaft to control inlet and
exhaust valve timings
Now its time to move to our last but most important car engine part.
Flywheel
 Flywheel (Image 14)
The torque provided by the engine is not uniform and is fluctuating in
nature. If a vehicle continues to move with this fluctuating power that it
will cause huge discomfort to the rider and also it will decrease life of its
different parts.
Hence to deal with the problem of fluctuating load a flywheel is used. A
flywheel is generally mounted on camshaft.  It stores torque when its
value is high and release it when its value is low in a cycle of operation. It
acts as a torque buffer.