How a car engine runs!

Ever wander the basics of how a car engine runs?

The operation in simple, now the theories are complex. Lets stick to the basics for now.
Car engines today run on a 4 stroke system. That means each piston will complete 2 up and down cycles in 2 revolutions of the engine.

The 1st stroke is called the Intake Stroke. The stroke is dedicated to filling your engine with the air/fuel mixture. First the injectors open for a precise amount of time, filling the intake ports with fuel, the valve then open as the piston starts to move down, creating a vacuum that sucks the vaporized fuel along with the air from your intake into the cylinder. Once the piston reaches the bottom of the cylinder, the intake valves close and the piston moves on to its next stroke.

The 2nd stroke is called the Compression Stroke. Now this stroke the piston is moving upwards to compress the air/fuel mixture, this is how the engine builds up its potential energy. Now it is widely believed that the engines spark plugs fire right when the piston gets to the top of the cylinder, but in fact it fires up to 36 degrees of an engine revolution before the piston reaches the top. This allows time for the mixture to burn and a steady pace down the cylinder until it reaches the piston and started to push down on it. By that time the piston itself is starting back down its path leading to the next stroke.

The 3rd stroke is called the Power Stroke. Now the potential energy of the compressed air/fuel mixture is now ignited and transformed into kinetic energy, forcing the piston downward at exponential pressures turning the crank which turns the transmission gears, which turns the wheels causing you to move forward. As you might have guessed already is the that more air/fuel will create a bigger "boom" in you engine causing the car to accelerate faster, this happens when you step on the gas pedal. When the gas pedal is pushed down it opens the throttle plate more letting in more air and sending a signal to the cars "Powertrain Control Module," or short pcm or in laymans turns the cars "Computer" which is the cars brain, which calculates the signal in various equations to produce a proper "pulse width" (open time) for the injectors expelling more fuel.

Once the engine has a burned mixture it needs to get rid of the waste products of the combustion. This leads us to the 4th and final stroke, the Exhaust Stroke.
As the piston starts to move back up, the exhuast valve open. The piston pushes the exhuast gas out of the cylinder and out the exhuast of the tail pipe of the car. Poluting our atmosphere with toxic NOX gases!

Welp! That's it! I hope you enjoyed and learned something in this blog!
If you would like to learn more or would like to learn about something else please post a comment in my first blog! Thanks!