Engineering Explained

You're the king of the road. You think you're the fastest thing on four wheels. You know how to launch a car with a manual gearbox to accelerate the fastest, but do you know when to shift? Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained is here to drop the science about shifting to make sure that you have...

Brake rotors come in a number of flavors. You often see them vented, drilled, or slotted. Sometimes there's a combination of the three, and it's best to know which works most efficiently for the driving you plan to do. We know one of the biggest enemies of brake performance is heat, so the goal for...

Remember that 2002 Honda S2000 that Jason from Engineering Explained recently acquired? Well, he's already set to wrenching on it because, well, that's what he does. In this video, Jason is installing a fresh timing chain tensioner, as it seems this is a potential failure area for the Honda S2000...

Congratulations to Jason on his 500th Engineering Explained video. The series has been wonderful in the way it presents technical concepts and brings them down to a language that most of us can comprehend and understand. For his 500th video, Jason is trying to figure out which automaker makes the...

We've all made the same jokes. You see a front-wheel-drive street car go by and there's a massive rear spoiler hanging off its tail. It's an easy item on a car at which to poke some fun. In some cases, however, that rear spoiler on the right front-wheel-drive car makes a heck of a lot of sense. Our...

Before you start shaking your head and shouting "No!" at your computer screen and preparing an angry email about how stupid we are, hear us out. Our host Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained is referring to the addition of weight when traction is limited, such as in snowy or icy conditions. In...

Your intake manifold. It takes in air and sends it to your engine's combustion chamber. This is basically the start of the combustion process. After all, you can't have combustion without air. Engineering Explained is here to walk us through the process and explain how a variable intake manifold...

For some time now, Jason from Engineering Explained has been teaching us about all areas of our shared passion—and now we get to share in something a little more personal. His method of clearly explaining seemingly complex mechanical and technical parts of a car is both enjoyable and...

You know what variable valve timing is. You're quite familiar with Honda's VTEC system. Now Infiniti has something new for you dive into, and it's all about changing an engine's compression ratio. The Infiniti VC-T engine can change its compression ratio from a low of 8:1 to a high of 14:1. How...

Your car's brakes are pretty darn important. If you have lousy pedal feel, you should do something about that, right? Stopping is at least as important as going. So when you're looking to fix or upgrade your brake system, should you go with rubber lines or jump up to steel brake lines? Engineering...

To start, let's talk about what it means to lug your engine. This is the term used to describe when you're puttering along in a higher gear than you need to be in and the engine is turning low RPMs. When you're cruising along in 6th but you should've downshifted into 4th about a half mile back, you...

We love horsepower. We love torque. We also need to embrace fuel economy, and that's a tricky line to toe for producers of automobiles with large engines that make loud noises for enthusiastic customers. We currently live in an era of tremendous horsepower availability, yet our vehicles have also...

Jason, the host of Engineering Explained, gets the first point that we were going to make right out of the way. His latest video tackles things you should or should not be doing in a vehicle equipped with a CVT. We'd say that step one is to avoid these vehicles, but as Jason points out, that is the...

All-wheel-drive systems are numerous, and some of them work in different ways. A Subaru, an Audi, and a pickup truck all have different needs to meet in powering all their wheels. They use systems that employ various different technologies, and once more our friend at Engineering Explained is here...

It's a generally held rule: Let your car warm up a bit before heading off to tackle the day. But is it really necessary? In a word? No. Our friend Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained is here to explain why today's cars don't really need to be warmed up before driving. Basically, it comes down...

Your engine is a violent place. It's filled with moving metal, hot oil and fuel, and a mass of moving air. All of that combines to create combustion, which is basically a series of continual explosions—and it's all happening right in front of you. During the combustion process, some of the...

You're an under-hood expert by now, aren't you? We've been sharing a whole lot of information thanks to Engineering Explained and that means you should be fluent now in "gearhead." Still, there's always more to learn and today we're taking on a subject that's a bit more complicated, which must mean...

Your engine likes to breathe. There are ways to make it breathe easier, and one of them is by cramming air into the engine's "throat." You're forcing the induction. To do that, you'll need either a supercharger or a turbocharger. It's the boost-loving snail of a turbocharger that seems to be the...

Turbochargers are—literally—spooling up, with every major automaker now offering at least one boosted model in their lineups (and one with four turbos). Today, our friend Jason Fenske over at Engineering Explained takes a look at the most cutting edge variation: the variable twin-scroll...

Hot on the heels of his recent video showing us just how to best accelerate in a rear-wheel-drive car, Engineering Explained pro and Motor Authority friend Jason Fenske is back with the physics behind launching a front-wheel-drive vehicle. You may not immediately think "high performance" with a...