Lets be more specific. How does the engine on my Tacoma work? There we go. Specifics.
My car has a v6 internal combustion gasoline engine. That's a long way of saying "it moves by fire". And what does fire require? Three things: Oxygen. Fuel, and Heat. the basic purpose is to cause a fire, which is used to make something move.
So, lets go over that once more. In order to get our car to move, our engine needs to cause a fire, which requires fuel, heat, and oxygen.
Well, assuming that you are not in space, that last one is easy to come by. Fuel, obviously, is the gasoline in your tank. and the heat? well, we'll get to that
You have probably heard of a thing called a Carburetor. the Carburetor is where the air and fuel meet. it's job is to mix the air and the gasoline in order to make a proper fuel mixture. the ratio of fuel to air is important, as too much fuel will cause no combustion, and too little fuel will cause only a small amount of combustion.
So you've got your fuel mixture. good. this mixture is injected into the piston chamber, where the piston's rabid up and down movement cause the mixture to be compressed. when compressed, the final element of fire is added: heat. this is done using a spark plug. the rapid expansion of gases in the chamber push the piston down, and the moment it starts to come up, a small vent opens, allowing the burned gases to exit out of the exhaust.
Wait, What? so the fire has come and gone. what now? Well, remember when the piston was being pushed down by the explosion of gases? when it got pushed down, an arm attached to the bottom of the piston rotated the crankshaft, causing it to spin, also pushing the piston back into the cylinder. this spinning crankshaft, through a series of gears and belts and spinning bits, spins the drive shaft, which spins the wheels, causing you to move.
Here's a diagram:
Now, this cycle take place many times a second per cylinder, and some cars have over 12 cylinders. That's a lot of power. the more cylinders, the more explosions in the same amount of time, and the more force goes to spinning the crankshaft.
So remember when i said that my car was a 'v6'? do you know what that means? hopefully you do, but if not, don't worry. The 6 means that there are 6 cylinders, or 6 pistons. the V means that there are two sets of 3 pistons, each in a straight line at an angle to each other.
if a V6 has 6 pistons in a V arrangement, then you can guess what a V8, V10, or V12 are. A straight 6 engine has six cylinders, all in a straight line
Here's a v6: (Notice the 3 cylinders on each side)
And here's a Straight 6:
See the Difference?
