Bow Tie Basics, Part 1

For car freaks, car talk never seems to stray very far from the subject of horsepower. But before we go swimming in those deep high-performance waters, it’s always a good idea to have a firm grasp on the basics of how all this power is created. The more you know about how an internal combustion engine works, the better grip you’ll have on why engines perform the way they do.

The best place to start with this Bow Tie Basics series is at the very beginning with the four-stroke cycle. While this may seem overly simplistic, we guarantee that you’ll learn something new from every story in this series. In 1878, Nikolaus A. Otto built a successful internal combustion engine using four strokes that have survived the test of time. These four strokes have become known as the Otto cycle and are Intake (1), Compression (2), Power (3), and Exhaust (4). According to Ed Iskenderian, owner of Iskenderian Cams and the “Camfather,” there’s also a fifth cycle—overlap. We’ll tease you with that one after we break each of these strokes down into more detail.

We'll start in the sidebars below with a single cylinder analogy using a crankshaft, connecting rod, and piston in a bore with overhead valves.

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