NOTE: With this issue of HOT ROD, your Shop Series begins a slightly different and more comprehensive approach to the discussion of engine and vehicle basics. In the coming months, you'll find a frank ...

With all the recent emphasis on electric vehicles, we often overlook the technology that still powers most cars on the road today. The internal combustion engine (ICE) has been at the heart of the ...

In case you missed it, the automotive industry has been on a steady trajectory of internal combustion engine (ICE) downsizing for years. Battery-powered electric vehicles may capture most of the ...

We all know how a conventional internal combustion engine works, with a piston and a crankshaft. But that’s by no means the only way to make an engine, and one of the slightly more unusual ...

Soon after the internal combustion engine was invented, technological advancements steadily improved its efficiency and boosted its power output. Increasing displacement—or, in simpler terms, ...

Engineers design modern engines to run in a narrow temperature window where power, efficiency, and emissions all line up. The ...

Generally, combustion engines follow a standard principle of operation founded on the premise that the crankshaft spins clockwise (as seen from the driver’s seat). That’s how the powerplants are ...

3D printing is a powerful tool for creating all kinds of stuff, but it has its limits. Hobbyist-focused machines that dispense melted plastic through a nozzle can only make parts that are so strong.

There are many aspects of a car's engineering and design that us enthusiasts can fall in love with and obsess over, though maybe none more so than their exhaust systems. Sure, the exhaust system is an ...

Wankel rotary engines, typically but not exclusively found in Mazdas, certainly lean on the "quirkier" side of modern powertrain systems, made quirkier because most rotary-powered cars on the road ...