- Blower, LSD, muffler delete, heel-toe, blinker fluid. You've heard these terms
a million times before, but what do they all mean? Today, we're gonna look at some car terms that every car nerd needs to know. Easy noob stuff to expert level shop talk. How many do you know? Let's find out. Hey, big thank you to our friends at Keeps for sponsoring yet another
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for sponsoring this episode. Now, let's Keep this episode going. Be a gearhead is a lifetime pursuit. No matter how many wrenches you turn, how much gas you breathe, how many engine blocks do
you accidentally crack, there's always something to learn. Sometimes it's intimidating
to talk to car folk, because you literally don't
know what they're talking about. So we've made it easy on
you and compiled a list. Let's start with an easy one. A muffler is like a big
box in your exhaust system that muffles noise and
keeps every car on the road from sounding like a Harley Davidson. Like I said, we're gonna start easy. This list is going to ramp up. A resonator is a device that
comes just before the muffler. It acts as a sort of echo
chamber to focus the sound, so the muffler can silence it. It's usually the fat
section of an exhaust pipe looking like that big,
weird section on a worm. You know what I'm talking about, right? What's up with that part
of the worm, what is that? Downpipe in older cars refers to a pipe that carries exhaust
from the exhaust manifold to the rest of the exhaust system. In a turboed engine,
however, it carries exhaust from the turbine to the
rest of the exhaust. Moving on to the chassis. A unibody is when the car's chassis is a single piece of metal
that also joins with bodywork, born perfect and beautiful. This is in contrast to a ladder frame, which is employed by most
trucks and off-road vehicles. A ladder frame uses frame
rails as the body sits on top. And then you've got some cross members and it makes the whole ladder
frame look like a ladder. When it comes to fuel delivery, cars either have carburetors, or more commonly nowadays, fuel injection. I don't think a car has
been with a carburetor since like the mid '80s. In a carbureted engine,
the gas and air mixture comes together before it moves
through the intake manifold into the cylinders. And direct fuel injection shoots the fuel straight
into the cylinder. CEL is the check engine
light on your dash. Just the side of this light can strike fear into the hearts
of the bravest of tuners. Sometimes it looks like this, which can be confusing
even to major car nuts. We prefer this one. It's
just way more clear. FWD, or front wheel drive, the front wheels drive the car, obviously, RWD is rear wheel drive, and 4WD, it's four wheel drive, which means your car is
capable of providing power to all four wheels when they need it either automatically
or manually controled. Basically, 4WD can operate as either two or four wheel drive. AWD or all wheel drive means
the engine supplies power to all the wheels at all the same time. Torque is the measurement
of twisting force measured in pounds feet. If you hold a 12 inch ruler in one hand and put a one pound
weight at the end of it, you're twisting with one
pound foot of torque. A lot of hype is given to horsepower, which is how quickly it can do work. But torque is also extremely
important and really tells you how quickly you can get out of the hole or get out of a turn or
accelerate, you know? All right, so now we're gonna get into some more general engine terms that have to do with engine layout. You've heard of I4, I6, V6,
straight six, slant six. When someone refers to a
car as a V8 or inline six, what does that mean? Well, they're referring to
the number and arrangements of cylinders in the engine. This is a straight six, because the cylinders are
all lined up in a row, straight up and down. This is a V6 because the cylinders are arranged in a V shape. This is a Chrysler slant six, where all the cylinders
are slanted 30 degrees. I'm a six because only 40%
of dudes are hotter than me, F-F and F-R describe front
or rear engine position and front or rear wheel drive. For example, F-R is front
engine, rear wheel drive. R-R is rear engine rear wheel drive, as well as the sound, a seal makes. (seal honks) And FFA is front engine, all wheel drive. Bondo is a body putty. You can use it to fill
tiny holes and cracks. You can sand it down.
You can paint over it. You can do a bad job with it and make your car look like (beep), and then just say, screw it
and buy a new body panel. Whatever you do though, don't use it for structural integrity. W-O-T, WOT or wide open throttle. It's when you've got the pedal
all the way to the floor, throttle opens up all the way. You don't have time to say the whole term. So you've just got to abbreviate it. WOT. WOT. When you hear someone say N/A, they're saying naturally aspirated. This refers to any engine
that doesn't force air into the cylinders with
a turbo or supercharger. Speaking of naturally aspirated, one of my favorite engine terms is HEMI, and it's not just a name for Chrysler V8. Hemi refers to the shape of the hemispherical combustion
chamber in the engine. Before the Chrysler Hemi's
debut in the early '50s, most car manufacturers
used flathead designs, which got the job done,
but weren't very efficient. Hemispherical heads, on the other hand, allowed for the use of much larger valves, which increased airflow
through the engine, which always increases power. There's a lot more to the Hemi than I can get into right now, so to learn more about it, check out are up to speed on the Hemi. It's one of my favorite
episodes. I just love them Hemis. Turbochargers and superchargers
kind of do the same thing. They're both essentially pumps that compress additional air fuel mix into the cylinder before combustion. Turbochargers are powered by the energy from the exhaust gas, while superchargers are driven by a belt connected to the crankshaft. Spinney boi is slang for a turbocharger. There are also a million other
slang terms for these things, we got whooshie boys, snails, turbine. You can probably just make
up your own, honestly. And if you say it with enough confidence, people will believe you. Here at Donut we call them spinny boys. Blow off valve. Even if you don't know this term, you've definitely heard
the sound of things. Sometimes they're called BOVs
or BPVS for bypass valve. These take the load off the turbo, when the throttle is suddenly closed. Without a blow off valve, there just be a lot of
pressure in between the turbo and closed throttle. So the blow off valve
lets off that pressure. (car rumbles) Now, when it comes to superchargers, there are three different types of them. I like to refer to them as blowers. Roots is the heaviest and
biggest style of supercharger. It looks the coolest, but
it's the least efficient kind. It has nothing to do
with the Sepultura album, it's just named after
the guy who invented it. Twin screw superchargers use two screws to squeeze the air into the engine. They usually sit on top of
the engine and are very loud. Do not Google twin screw
in front of your twin. Central fugal superchargers
are the most efficient of the blower boys. They use a spinning
compressor to squeeze the air, and as a result, they
kind of look like turbos. They can be mounted on
the front of your engine, which is kind of a bummer, because then you don't get
to cut a hole in your hood. You might've heard of X-pipe
and H-pipe exhaust setups. While these two will make your
V engine car sound different, the main benefit these
pipes bring to the table is a balancing effect between
your two cylinder banks. Exhaust pressure can build
up on one side of your engine and an X- or H-pipe can
allow the pressure even out and flow better through
the exhaust system. They also sound really
dope, especially X-pipes. (car rumbles) A cat is your catalytic converter. It's another exhaust device that reduces the amount of
toxins in the exhaust gas. This is one thing you
don't want to delete. They get stolen all the time. And if you steal catalytic converters, please just get a job instead. A lot of people actually do
cut these out of their system because they think they reduce power. That kind of used to be true, when cats first came on the scene, but nowadays they're very efficient and don't offer much benefit
if you take them out. So don't do that. Plus you can't pass them off. A delete is when you just
remove a feature of your car. You hear people say that
they have a muffler delete or a cat delete. And all that means is they're probably not gonna
pass (indistinct) next year. A sleeper is a car that looks
unassuming on the outside, but it's built like a racer on the inside. The trick is lull opposing racers into a false sense of security, not realizing what's under the hood. Our boys Tony Angelo and
Lucky over at Hot Rod Garage probably built the coolest
sleeper of all time, the Maliby, I got to drive
it around the block one time. And it was the sickest thing ever. I love sleepers. I love a good sleeper. Let's talk about some suspension stuff. A solid axle or a live axle is when an axle is one rigid
piece and moves together. It's durable, but if one wheel bumps, the whole axle will be effective. They're extremely strong,
which is why trucks use them. They're also great for drag racing. A torsion beam rear
suspension is a little better. The wheels are offset from the axle, so the car's weight creates torsion, which compresses these springs
allowing for a smoother ride. A MacPherson strut
assembly looks like this. It's basically a spring for
damping an individual wheel. Double wishbone suspensions
are a little more sophisticated than the straight strut designs and they result in better handling, thanks to these two lateral control arms that look like the cape wishbone wears when he's dressed as Sherlock Holmes, hence double wishbone. Multilingual suspensions look like this: a complicated mess of links
to push and pull on the wheel in every which way. This design is super customizable, as these links can be replaced
with adjustable pieces to tune your suspension
exactly how you want it. Camber is the angle made by the wheels, sitting on the ground,
measured in degrees of swag. Wheels straight up and
down have zero camber, and thus no swag. These wheels have like 20
degrees of negative swag and these wheels have 90
degrees of positive swag, which mathematically is swag to the max. Camber angle has a direct effect on how much grip your tires have. So if you want to really grippy set up, you're not gonna want a (beep)
ton of camber in your tires. Whereas, if you'd want
to look cool as hell, you're definitely gonna
want all that camber. Me personally, I'm a
grippy boy. I like grip. So I don't want to have a lot of camber, but I can appreciate a good
camber set up when I see one. (chuckles) Yes! Double clutching is when
you match the engine speed with the speed of the gear
you want to shift into. You put the clutch in shift to
neutral, let the clutch out, give the engine some
gas to get the RPMs up, put the clutch back in, shifted the next gear
and let the clutch out. AFR is the air fuel ratio. Basically, the mix of air and
gasoline your car uses to run. If you're using more
gas and not enough air, you're running rich, which
results in bad gas mileage. And if you're not using enough gas, you're running lean, and you might notice bad
or jerky acceleration. And it's usually pretty
bad for your engine. When you strike the
perfect air fuel ratio, it's like Goldilocks
using baby bear's toilet. It just feels so right. Hey man, he's got up a
day, can't blame her. Let's talk about the different types of horsepower ratings you might've seen. Brake horsepower, wheel
horsepower, to the crank, what does all that mean? Brake horsepower, or BHP,
is the amount of power actually delivered at the crank shaft, which is why some people say to the crank. Brake horsepower is different
from wheel horsepower, or how much power actually
makes it to the ground. A notable amount of power is lost, when going from the engine
through the drive train into the wheels. You've probably heard of limp mode, which is a safe mode for your car. If any number of sensors goes off, limp mode kicks in, which
usually limits your engine to around 2,000 RPM and keeps
your ride from hurting itself. If your car goes into limp mode, you'd kind of have no choice, but to walk of shame it to a mechanic, so they can identify which
sensor went off and why. Here's some manual transmission terms. Heel-toe is a tricky and very
cool method of downshifting with a manual transmission. In the middle of a downshift, you brake and hit the
throttle at the same time, using your heel and your toe. Try this one in your buddy's
car before you break yours. Rev matching is when you blip the gas to match the RPM difference
between the engine and the transmission during a shift. You can actually do this without a clutch. if you do it smoothly enough, I can not. Rev hang is when you push in
the clutch and the RPMs stay up and decrease gradually. Car manufacturers program it
into the engine control module to keep your car from creating
too many harmful missions that are product of quick gear changes. I know that sounds crazy,
but trust me, it's real. Car throttle has a good article on it, I'll leave a link in the description. A money shift is when
you're driving super hard and you accidentally
shipped into the wrong gear. More specifically on money
shift to shifting one, two, and then back to one hitting
first gear again after second instead of hitting third, shooting your RPMs into the stratosphere and likely causing a lot
of money's worth of damage. Final drive is the
ratio between the pinion and ring gear in the differential
and exists in every car. A lower final drive ratio
will result in less torque, but a higher top speed
while a higher ratio will do the opposite. LSD stands for limited slip differential. It's a kind of rear differential
that drives both wheels, even if one of them loses traction. It results in a smoother
power transfer to the wheels and makes it possible to do big old smoky skids and burnouts. CVT stands for continuously
variable transmission, which is belt or chain driven
rather than gear driven. The belt connects angled
polies in a way that allows you to essentially change
gear ratios seamlessly. The car doesn't need to shift
gears in a traditional sense. Cars that CVTs accelerate much smoother, since there aren't steps in between gears. Does it feel weird to
accelerate perfectly smoothly? Yeah, and it does. And people don't really like
it, but it is pretty cool. Blinker fluid is a lubricating agent that helps silence that annoying
click in your turn signals. If you hear that tick tock sound, you're probably not taking
good enough care of your car, take it to the shop immediately. Or if you fancy yourself
a real grease monkey, you can change your
blinker fluid yourself. I recommend Dirty Dirk's blinker drink. It's made from real snake oil and we're proud to have them as a sponsor. A transaxle is one big box
that combines the transmission axle and differential
into one single unit. They were invented to save serious space for FF and RR vehicles. They're also used in some FR vehicles for weight distribution. Racing from a dig means starting
a race from a dead stop, also known as racing. Racing from a roll means starting a race while the cars are already moving. A shout out to 1320 video.
I freaking love you guys. Check out their channel for
some roll racing examples. Ground effect is an aerodynamic principle of race car design. You shape the car so that when
you drive differences in air pressure create a downward
force on your car, giving you better traction. Firing order is the order in
which the spark plugs and fire. For example, in this six cylinder engine, the firing order is one
five, three six two four. The firing orders are
usually optimized for balance between the left and right cylinder banks, as well as the front and
the back of the engine. Rod knock. If you hear a repetitive
knocking coming from your engine, that sounds like this, might be rod knock. Your piston is connected to a rod, which is then connected
to your crank shaft. There are bearings at each end, and if you run too low on oil or just go to ham on your engine, you can damage that rod bearing, which means metal on metal contact. Your engine might be toast. So rest in peace. There it is a bunch of car
terms you need to know. How many did you know already? Let me know in the comments. Now you know all of them. So feel free to ask your mechanic for Dirty Dirk's blinker
drink with competence. Obviously, I missed a ton of them. We're probably going to
do more of these episodes in the future, so if there's something you'd like to hear more about, let me know in the comments below. if you haven't subscribed
to Donut yet already, please consider subscribing. We put out a bunch of videos
a week, bunch of content, we worked really hard on it for you. We want to be inclusive. We want to help you learn
about the cars we love so much. follow Donut on also
some media @donutmedia. Follow me at nolanjsykes. I post pictures sometimes. Be kind, I'll see you next time.
