Engines -  some very basic essential knowledge!

Before we can understand how to tune engines or to make more power from an engine we need to have a good idea of how engines work. 

There is no point talking about nitrous, turbocharging or chips or supercharging if you don't really understand how this makes more power!  I will give a really simple view here that only relates to power!

Here we go then...
Engines breath in air!   Its what they run on!  They breath an exact quantity of air depending on the design of the particular engines internals, per revolution. They work like an air pump.  They then cleverly add the CORRECT quantity of fuel to this air via their fuel injection systems, or a via a carburettor and then they burn it!  The  energy that is released then powers your car!   There that was pretty simple right? 

This paragraph above is ALL IMPORTANT.  It tells you everything you need to know regarding generating power from a given engine!  Please re-read it!!!  Look at this simple animation >>> 
It PUMPS a fixed quantity of air each revolution.

You might think more fuel added to this quantity of air will give more power!  But it does just the opposite...   Too little fuel added to this air also gives less power.  So we need to add just the right amount to get the most power from this air that the engine "pumps" with each revolution.  Fortunately the manufacturers have already seen to this with careful jetting of carburettors, or careful mapping of the fuel injection computer...

So how to make more power then?  We need to make the engine breath more air!  Its then possible to burn more fuel! 

The engine HAS to have more air or rather oxygen if it is to be able to burn some extra fuel and make some extra power.   Before you boy racers go off buying "bits" then understand this simple fact well!

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