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How a car works (2012)

howacarworks.com

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Re: How a car works (2012)

#41

Post by thom801 »

higherpurpose wrote: post #38
AlexMuir wrote: post #19

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Maybe do a "How an electric car works" site/page in the future. I imagine it would have quite a bit less content, though.

Exactly what I was thinking. Basically it is just this connected to a drive shaft. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/mothow.h...

Re: How a car works (2012)

#42

Post by gus_massa »

teh_klev wrote: post #35

Previous discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=how%20a%20car%20works&sort=byP...

I only see two small and old discussions about this site in the search results.

dang found another a previous discussion about this site, with more points and comments, but it has a very different title.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#43

Post by a3n »

bloat wrote: post #36
nicboobees wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will always use "old tech". "Old tech" often just works. Flawlessly. I have a dumper truck I borrow from next door. Crank handle, diesel. It just works. Starts every time. No battery, no crap to go wrong. "new tech" is often designed to last 5 or 10 years maximum. After that is anyones guess as to whether it'll work.

I was going to moan at you about how an old car would produce much more pollution than a newer car. But then I looked it up: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/green-motoring/11187483/...

I bought a new Honda in 1990. I just now passed it on to my son, and bought a two year old Toyota.

Think of all those cars that didn't get built because I drove the same car for 25 years. I thought about that often.

The only time it didn't pass emissions test is the gas cap didn't seal properly. Bought a five dollar cap and was good to go.

And it gets 35 mph in daily commuting.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#44

Post by aunty_helen »

This is great. As for the criticism that a lot of the content is old, most of the core concepts can be explained better with older tech as it's simpler. This allows you to focus on what is happening and leave the extra details about what technology a part or process has for a case by case basis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI is a great example of this.

Saying that, an article on direct injection, common rail diesels, efficient turbo charging, variable valve timing, MAF VS MAP EFI would be worth considering.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#45

Post by AlexMuir »

otis_inf wrote: post #37
AlexMuir wrote: post #19

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Great work! two points of criticism: 1) The site still talks about carburetors and has no mention about fuel injection systems, while in Europe all cars sold must have a fuel injection system for quite some time now, so this looks quite outdated 2) Diesel engines of course don't have spark plugs, but you don't mention diesel engines.

Good points. We do have articles on there about fuel injection and diesel engines but it's clear that I'm not surfacing this in the best way. Thanks.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#46

Post by AlexMuir »

mrspeaker wrote: post #39
AlexMuir wrote: post #19

This is my site! This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today. I'm happy to answer any questions. I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome. The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but…

Hey, I think this site is amazing and certain appeals to my "hacker aesthetic" even though I'm not a car person! One thing that I'd like to see is some kind of guided tour - I got to the page and instantly saw "how heating systems work" and then "the engine - how power is created" and this confused me a bit. It made it seem like the first thing you need to know about cars is how the heater works! Then I realized ther…

You're right - the order to Basics is somewhat chaotic - I'm going to fix this today. I'd reordered it to push heavily trafficked articles to the front page for SEO reasons. That was a bad idea with hindsight.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#47

Post by gshrikant »

AlexMuir wrote: post #29
gshrikant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site is amazing! For someone only vaguely familiar with the mechanical-side of cars, it was a pleasant surprise to see all this quality content consolidated outside of a textbook. I was reading the sections on suspension systems and the diagrams look just plain beautiful! Dated or not, it is definitely a great place to get some fundamentals straight. So I took the liberty of posting it on HN this morning. Thanks…

Thanks! I'm curious - did you just find the site on Google? Over the past two months I've re-mastered the old illustrations with a few filters and the difference is incredible. There's still a little more to do but I'm pleased you find it useful. The next step is to update the iOS app with new versions of the pics. Here's a comparison of the pics: Old - http://www.howacarworks.com/images/846/leaf-spring-suspensio...…

Yes! It was the top result for 'car damper working' and a bunch of other search terms.

Re: How a car works (2012)

#49

Post by jjohn2 »

Swizec wrote: post #7
gregpilling wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?

The last carburetors in the US were in 1994 ISUZU trucks. [1] Some motorcycles still use them for simplicity and the last NASCAR season with carburetors was 2011. And anyway, why are we still teaching people how a CPU without branch prediction works? When will we let go of old technologies? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor#History_and_develop...

You can find them in the inboard motors on many not-so-old boats. My 10 year old Mercruiser uses one (although I think the newer Mercruisers have all shifted to EFI). I found the site to be very instructive. I'm always interested in learning more about how the engine in my boat works in case there's anything I can repair at home instead of taking it to the shop. I think a lot of the information on the site is transferable seeing as how mine is essentially a GM produced 'car-engine' mounted in a hull (minus a transmission and some other things).

Re: How a car works (2012)

#50

Post by spydum »

rgbrenner wrote: post #40
marincounty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you! I will never understand the mostly American tradition of buying a new car every few years? Cars that are so complicated; the owner is forced to bring it to the shop for every hiccup. A lot of cars/and trucks from the late 80's to around 2008, are pretty easy to work on, and with the proper maintence can last 300,000 miles. And if your not afraid of getting your hands dirty--you will never have to pay a…

mostly American tradition of buying a new car every few years The average car on US roads is 11.4 years old: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-automotiv... The average car on EU roads is 8.6 years old. In fact, in the EU only Estonia and Finland keep their cars longer than the US on average. http://www.acea.be/statistics/tag/category/average-vehicle-a...

would be interesting to see vehicle age by geography. I suspect all the rural farmers are the ones skewing the average (it's not unusual to have a 20-30yr old truck out on the farm.. You can fix them with the same tools as your tractors).
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