One of the biggest changes to the engine ECU in recent years has been the rise of the drive-by-wire system. Generically known as ‘x-by-wire’ or sometimes (incorrectly) as ‘fly-by-wire’, such systems were introduced by vehicle OEMs in response to more punitive emissions legislation in recent years.
Consisting of a throttle pedal device requesting a torque demand from the engine, the engine ECU calculates the ignition and fuelling necessary and requests the appropriate amount of air from the engine throttle. With no physical cable connecting the throttle pedal to the unit on the engine, communication is achieved solely via electronics and digital signals. Systems similar to these were first used without mechanical back-up in the F-16 jet fighter in 1974 and then the Airbus A320 commercial airliner 14 years later. Read more…
If there is one area of engineering that has simply exploded over the past 30 years or so it is that of control. Where once we had mechanical or electrical devices to manage what few systems were around, these days almost all mechanical systems are controlled by some measure of electronics and computing such that a whole new subject has evolved - that of mechatronics.
In these times of political and economic upheavals around the world it seems there is an appetite for change in other areas of life as well. Suggestions for a revamp to the Formula One engine regulations could fill a whole book but it is the latest - including direct injection or gas turbine technology - that have really hit the headlines recently.
Simply mention the words ‘engine knock’ to any aftermarket EMS supplier and I almost guarantee that the conversation will cease albeit perhaps only briefly. But safe to reiterate that ‘knock’ or more precisely detonation, should be avoided at all costs and that the engine should be mapped sufficiently away from these borderline conditions, the conversation will no doubt continue along the original lines. And in truth for the vast majority of race units, particularly naturally aspirated ones, careful ignition mapping and avoiding detonation at 
In a conventional multi-point port injected gasoline engine the fuel is introduced into the air stream in the form of a jet of liquid. Atomising into small droplets, these mix with the air, begin to vaporise and eventually get carried off past the intake valves and into the combustion chamber. In between, varying amounts of this fuel might condense on the wall, travel along it and eventually vaporise back into the air stream. However the presence of this fuel, often referred to as a ‘puddle’ can have a significant effect on 
Can you imagine waking up one day and not remembering where you are? I’m only too certain that this may have happened to many of you after the recent festivities but the experience is probably something you would prefer to forget. Perhaps then you might spare a thought for the feelings of an engine upon being cranked into life. Waking from its enforced slumber the camshaft will tell it when to open and close the intake and exhaust valves but who tells it when to fire the charge and more importantly on which cycle?
The news that the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva in Switzerland is back in commission, is to be greeted with relief by all who have a genuine interest in particle physics. Designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe by accelerating beams of high energy particles creating proton-to-proton collisions, the results, it is hoped, should provide explanations to some of the most basic of laws surrounding the most elementary of objects in space and time. And from all this we might just gain a further understanding of our Universe and its beginning, starting with the Big Bang. 
Even as a boy I was continually mystified, and occasionally perplexed, by the operation of the carburettor. The myriad of main jets, air correction jets and emulsion tubes and the science on the fixed jet DCOE was a veritable minefield for the inexperienced, but once mastered, the satisfaction of getting an engine to start let alone run sweetly on the road or track, was reward in itself. The arrival of electronic fuel injection with its altogether totally different approach was greeted with relief more than any other emotion, not least because it solved the perennial problem of under bonnet packaging of large carburettors. But although the fuel could be
Don’t you just love modern day IT terminology? I mean it’s so graphic, so descriptive and often without even knowing the purpose of the feature or component, simply hearing the name gives you a pretty good idea. Thus for instance, we have floppy discs which were, at least initially – floppy, and hard discs that are well, – hard! Thus when we hear the term CAN Bus, without fully understanding what might be going on and ignoring the pre-fix, our imagination conjures up pictures of people in a bus travelled up and down a road. At each stage along the way, people get on and off and carry their shopping 
For those of you who have ever grappled with the art of carburettor ‘tuning’, the invention of the fuel injector must have come as something of a huge relief. The selection of choke sizes, main jets, emulsion tubes and air correction jets was all a bit fraught at times but once mastered and coupled with accelerator jets and something called ‘progression’, would seem to have guaranteed a job for life. Or so we thought. While the theory was always well understood it was only when we were able to view high-speed video that our true skills, or rather lack of them, was realised. Instead of the fine mist we 
