Engineering Explained

The final drive ratio is the last bit of gearing between your transmission and the driven wheels. By changing it, you can affect the performance of your car, rather dramatically in some cases. In general, a lower final drive ratio will lead to less torque at the wheels but a higher top speed...

Engines are complex bits of machinery. At their core level, yes, it's easy to understand what is happening. Air and fuel enter the engine where they are ignited and combustion occurs resulting in power that turns shafts. CHECK OUT: Classic video explains how a planetary gear set works In a modern...

Like most other electric and hybrid vehicles on the market, the Tesla [NSDQ:TSLA] Model S and Model X are both fitted with a system that allows them to recapture energy and put it back into the battery pack. The most common manner in which this is done is through a regenerative braking system...

All of those moving parts in your engine create heat through friction, and that heat needs to be mitigated or bad things will happen. This is the task of your oil. It lubricates and cools engine components. Your vehicle will most likely move this oil around by way of a wet sump oil system. If you...

The letters VVEL are important to the architecture of Nissan engines. Those four letters stand for Variable Valve Event and Lift. What that refers to is a Nissan engine that operates without the use of a throttle body. Instead, the air flowing into the engine is metered by way of the cams and...

Our friend Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained has already taught us how to change the oil in our cars. It's an easy process, and it's one that will allow you to get closer to your own machine while making sure it's properly maintained. Now it's time to take things a step further. Jason is...

Engineering Explained host Jason Fenske is currently planning the modifications for his own project Honda S2000. He has some great things in store for that car, but he also has a bit of advice for those of us looking to modify our own cars. To that end, he's created a list of his top five best...

Our friend Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained has been teaching us all about the engineering behind cars. His lessons range from maintenance considerations like how to change your oil to describing automotive systems like how rotary engines work to the physics of speed, best exemplified by his...

Winter has begun to embrace the country in its icy grasp, and that means it's past time you started thinking about winter tires. But are they really worth it and what do they actually do? Our friend Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained is here to help us understand the massive difference winter...

Our friend Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained has been teaching us a lot about our favorite subject: cars. Today, he's here to talk about something that just might inspire you to get your hands dirty under the hood of your own car. It's basic, but every car guy should know it. The topic of the...

If you're going to do work on your own vehicle, you'll most likely need to get underneath it at some point. Unless you own a monster truck, this means that you're going to have to lift your car in the air. This is intimidating for many, but there's a way to make it less so and Engineering Explained...

When Dodge brought its Viper ACR to the production car party back in 2015, the automaker also brought a long a sheet filled with brand new track records. The ACR broke production-car lap records at 13 different tracks. These weren't rinky-dink little local circuits that you've never heard of...

As the old saying goes, there is no replacement for displacement. That's not the case when it comes to rotary engines, which typically have very small displacement. Instead of cubes, if you want a rotary to make more power you do two things: add more rotors and/or slap on a turbocharger or two...

Ride comfort and performance. Creating a suspension system that serves both of those masters successfully is a challenging task. All sorts of technology can help, from air suspensions to magnetic dampers and so on. But what is best when it comes to a soft or stiff spring setup? What do you really...

Modifying you car can get expensive very quickly. Still, you want to take it to the track and any method of eeking out a quicker lap time is one at which you're going to look. Where do you get the most bang for your buck? Jason from Engineering Explained is here to break it all down with science...

Road cars and race cars are very different. The cars we buy for every day driving are much heavier, due in part to safety and emissions equipment. Race cars shed every ounce of weight in the pursuit of speed. But those aren't the only differences. In some ways, road cars that are meant to last for...

Mercedes-Benz vehicles are notorious for their smooth ride quality. Bumps and ruts just don't bother passengers in Mercedes vehicles like they do in other cars. How does Mercedes do it? Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained is here to tell us. In this video, Jason analyzes how two Mercedes...

Jason from Engineering Explained sits in the passenger seat for this ride along. He's accompanied by David Higgins (yes, brother of the also crazy-talented Mark) and the pair are set to explore a lap of the Global Rallycross Los Angeles course. The car here is a Subaru racing machine that's capable...

Engineering Explained and The Humble Mechanic team are two YouTube channels with the goal of teaching us more about the cars we drive. Today, they get together to break down how Volkswagen's dual-clutch gearbox works. Volkswagen calls it the Direct-Shift Gearbox, or DSG for short. With an engineer...

An internal combustion engine needs a few things to work. One of those parts that makes an engine do its thing is a piece called the camshaft. This helps control the timing of the intake and exhaust valves that sit at the top of the engine. Koenigsegg is setting out to revamp anything it can...