Subaru Turbo Diesel Boxer Engine

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Subaru’s engineering department has developed a 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel boxer engine, the world’s first.

The engine will be marketed only in Europe and there’s no plan yet for the engine to be released in the US. The turbo diesel boxer engine will make its way first to the Subaru Legacy.

Subaru will have to work out on the the powertrain to pass stricter European Union pollution controls since the engine produces 150 grams CO2/km.

Read more

Why A Car Needs A Radiator

Since there are numerous moving mechanical parts in a car’s engine, the continuous movement of those engine parts creates friction which in turn creates heat.

To reduce the friction, the effected parts will be lubricated when the motor oil is pumped throughout the engine. However, as part of the engine normal operation, the motor oil alone is not enough to dissipate heat as other parts of the engine continue to generate heat and the heat produced often reaches boiling stage. This is where radiator is required.

Read more

Actual Purposes Of Car Bumpers

Generally we all know that a number of protection enhancements like additional airbags, better seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, halogen lights and other equipments can add more protection and even style to our vehicle. Do you know that one of these protection is the bumper.

There are two kinds of bumpers that are usually installed, the front and rear bumpers. These bumpers are normally huge reshaped metal shields designed to absorb shock from minor, low-speed collisions. Most bumpers nowadays are made to enhance the vehicle’s appearance and are not only designed to protect the vehicle’s passengers. It can either add more balance to the vehicle’s look and even add to the vehicle’s aerodynamic design. A perfect balance between the two aspects where it can protect and add beauty to the vehicle a well-designed bumper.

Bumpers are now only considered to be add-ons to enhance the look of one’s automobile nowadays especially with the rise of automobile customization industry. Others just disregard its most important aspect, giving protection, and rather have their bumpers custom made to fit their liking or taste.

Does Lowering Your Car Do Any Good?

I found this interesting article from tuninglinx.com about lowering your car. You might have second thought after you rad this.

First of all, we all know that people lower their cars for:

1. The looks (or good looks) and
2. For better handling

Buy a set of new springs and you’ll see that your car sticks on the road, cause the center of gravity is lowered. That’s all.

Is It Really??

Read more

How To Check The Fuel Injection Funtionality

If your car won’t start and you can’t figure out why. You’ve checked that there is spark, the fuel pump is making its customary whirring noise when you turn the key. You pulled out the spark plugs, but they don’t look wet or even smell of gasoline. There is a gadget that you can check if the fuel-injection brain is working without buying an expensive scan tool?

A device called a noid light can be used to check to see if the injection system is working at all.

It’s simply a small incandescent bulb in a socket with pins that plug directly into the wiring harness leading to your fuel injectors. You can buy a set to fit any number of applications for as little as $15. Pop the connector off the injector and plug the noid light in. Crank the engine over. If the noid light flashes, the computer is operational enough to send voltage to the injector.

It’s a lot easier to see the noid light flashing eventhough you can also use voltmeter to read the reading.

Click here to read from the source.

What Is Camshaft?

Below is an article to explain what camshaft is. It’s from auto-extreme.com

Most of you I’m sure will have heard of cams swaps etc as a mean to more power but do you really know what they are and how they work ? This article should clear things up a bit and help you understand how the camshaft goes about its business.

What are they?

A camshaft is basically a long rod which has lobes along it’s length, basically a lobe if cut through the middle would be egg shaped. The lobes stick out from the cam and basically as the cam rotates it causes these lobes to sequentially open and close the inlet and exhaust valves. The cam has a pulley on one end and is normally operated by a timing belt or chain which normally runs from a pulley on the end of the crankshaft. The pulley on the end of the cam can be changed for one which has an element of adjustment on it’s hub (vernier wheel). This allows a degree of adjustment of the cam timing with respect to the crank position and helps position the torque curve by opening and closing the valves at a defined time.

How much power?

The concept of getting more power from cams is to have taller lobes on the cam which will increase “lift” and open the valves further and/or make the cam lobes fatter to increase “duration” which is the length of time the valve is opened. Both obviously help by allowing more time for fuel and air to enter. The problem with wild cams ie ones with big lift and duration is that you can get problems with valve overlap which is where the car will idle in a lumpy fashion because the exhaust and inlet valves are open at the same time and if the engine is running slowly it doesn’t have a chance to use the mixture before it is wasted. When the throttle is opened it’s fine as the gas speed around the ports increases. On say a an 8 valve Peugeot 205 gti engine there is a single overhead cam with 8 lobes as the picture below. This operates both the inlet and exhaust valves. With the Peugeot mi16 engine for example the sixteen valves are operated by 2 cams (dual overhead cam - DOHC) one cam opening the inlet ports on one side of the head and the other cam opening the exhaust valves on the other side of the head. It follows that cam swaps on an Mi16 engine are more costly due to the fact you have 2 cams to upgrade. It isn’t always the case that a 16 valve engine will have 2 cams, you can get 16 valve engines with a single cam but this is rare.

Are they worth it?

The secret for road use is to not go too wild. Generally a mild road spec cam in a single cam engine will not affect idle and will give around 10bhp. Coupled with a gas flowed head, good exhaust system and air filter more can be had. It’s one of those mods that really compliment other mods and in isolation won’t give a huge gain, if your engine needs an overhaul it’s a good option while the mechanic is already there. At least you know what they are now though !

 

Click here to go to the source.

Exhaust-System Design

A passenger-car exhaust system consists basically of three main components:

Catalytic Converter

The catalytic converter serves as an exhaust-gas cleaning device for spark ignition (SI) engines (as does nowadays the oxidation catalytic converter in diesel engines). It is mounted as close as possible to the engine so that it can quickly reach its operating temperature and therefore be effective in urban driving. It is fitted as supplementary equipment in place of the front muffler, whose acoustical functions it also takes over in addition to its exhaust-gas cleaning function. The acoustical changes in the vehicle must meed legal requirements.

Mufflers

Depending on the size of the vehicle and the engine, one or several mufflers are used. In V-engines the left and right cylinder banks are frequently run separately, each being fitted with its own catalytic converter of muffler, and only brought together at the end of the vehicle in one large muffler.

Exhaust Pipes

The exhaust pipes are the third and last component in the exhaust system. They combine the exhaust-gas outlets in the cylinder head into one or more pipes (manifolds), and also connect the catalytic converter(s) and the mufflers to each other. The length and cross-section of the pipes, as well as the type of junction used, influence the vehicle’s performance characteristics and acoustic behavior. Exhaust systems for vehicles with larger swept volumes are therefore often fitted with twin pipes. The pipes, the catalytic converter, and muffler are connected to the main body of the system by means of insert connections and flanges. Many original-equipment (OE) systems are welded into one complete element for faster mounting.

The entire exhaust system is connected with the underbody of the vehicle via flexible suspension elements. The fixing points must be carefully selected, as otherwise vibration can be transmitted to the bodywork and thus generate noise in the passenger compartment. The exhaust-system noise at the exhaust-emission point (tailpipe) can also cause bodywork resonances.

The total volume of the passenger-car Muffler system is approximately three to eight times the engine’s swept volume. Depending on swept volume and the type of muffler, the exhaust system weighs between 8 and 40 kg.

Click here to go to the source of this article.

Exhaust-system purpose

The exhaust system reduces the pollutant constituents of the exhaust gas generated by combustion in the engine. The remaining exhaust gas is then discharged as quietly as possible at a convenient point of the vehicle. The engine power should be reduced as little as possible during the process.

Source.