Car Basics Explained — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] Cars are one of the best interests to have. Whether you're into racing them, modifying them, or making sweet, sweet love to them, they can improve your life massively. They give you something to get excited about and to bond with people over.

[00:13] But there's a lot of basic knowledge that's needed when talking about them. That's why it can feel overwhelming when you talk to someone who's actually knowledgeable. And of course, you don't want them to know you're an idiot, so you just nod your head and pretend you know what an 8-liter quad-turbo W16 with DCT means

[00:29] while you get so annoyed that you start to think about plunging a knife right into their jugular and watching them gradually slump into a puddle of their own blood. Well, lucky for them, I'm going to teach you what those terms mean, so you can follow along in the conversation like a normal person

[00:43] instead of just thinking about murdering them. And really, there's not much to it, so this video will cover everything you need to know to have a real car conversation. Once you understand things like the engine types, transmissions, and drivetrains,

[00:56] you can start to form your opinions about cars, which makes you interesting to talk to. And even if you already know the basics about cars, I'll be throwing in some facts that even seasoned car nerds don't know, so you can really trick people into thinking you're an expert.

[01:10] And we should really start by talking about the basic layout. All cars have an engine, a transmission, and a drivetrain, which is everything that you need to make the car go. Unless, of course, you're driving a Ford,

[01:22] in which case you'll be pushing most of the time, so that'll just add weight. But in general, these components are blended together in a multitude of ways to create anything from a Honda Civic to an F-150 to a Bugatti. Now let's take a look at the engine, and the first thing you need to know is that how it works isn't actually that important.

[01:39] You can just think of it like a flashlight, because you should think about what it does for you and not what's going on inside while you're using it. All you need to know is that there are cylinders with a piston that pumps up and down, air and fuel goes in, combustion occurs, and that creates a force which is used to move the car.

[01:54] If you want to take that red pill and actually see how an engine works, you can just look it up. There's a ton of videos, and it's really not that complicated. The real thing that you should know is the basic notation. So when you see something like this, you should be able to tell what kind of engine it has.

[02:08] And it's actually pretty easy. So the first thing to look at is actually the last number here, which tells you how many cylinders the engine has. This is the most important information since it tells you a lot about the character of the car.

[02:20] For example, something small, cheap, and light, like a Honda Civic, will almost always have four cylinders, while something faster and sportier, like a Corvette or a Mustang, will have eight, and a Bugatti can have up to 16 cylinders.

[02:33] And now that we know how many cylinders the engine has, we can look at the letter next to it, which tells us the layout of those cylinders. In this example, the V tells you that the engine actually looks like a V shape. The cylinders are divided into two separate banks, which face each other at roughly a 90 degree angle.

[02:49] Probably the most common engine layout is the I which also means inline or straight Basically every single 4 is an inline or straight 4 and BMW chooses to use inline sixes over the more common V6 The next important engine layout to see is denoted by an H

[03:08] or an F. Subaru and Porsche use this engine layout for most of their cars because it allows you to keep the weight lower to get better handling. In this engine layout, two banks of cylinders sit flat opposing each other on the same plane. In that way, the letter H actually represents how

[03:25] the engine looks, which cannot be said for the W engine layout. This is commonly used by like Bentley or Bugatti to fit a lot of cylinders in a small engine block, and this is how it looks.

[03:37] They're not exactly like the letter W, but it sort of makes sense because maybe it's like having two V's within each other. And similar to the W layout, there's something called a VR layout, which you'll find in some Volkswagens. This allows you to get a six cylinder in the space of about

[03:52] an inline four or inline five. And now that you've figured out the layout of the engine, you can look at the first number here, which is the displacement. So in this case, 3.0L means three liters. This just tells you what the total volume is in all of the cylinders combined. So if

[04:09] you have a three liter V6, that means three liters is divided by six cylinders, so each cylinder is 0.5 liters or 500 milliliters or 500 cc's. And to put that in context, the new Honda Civic has a

[04:23] 4-cylinder with 1.5 liters, while the new Bugatti has a 16-cylinder with 8 liters. And that is basically all you need to know to talk about engines, except for one thing, which is the

[04:35] induction type. Now, most engines are what's called naturally aspirated, and this means the movement of the pistons in the cylinders draws fresh air in, which means you have oxygen for the combustion to occur. However, there is a better way to do things, and that's by either using a turbocharger

[04:50] or a supercharger to cram more air into the engine. More air means more oxygen, which means you can have a bigger explosion and make more horsepower. The difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger is that a turbocharger uses the exhaust gases coming from the engine to spin

[05:06] a turbine which compresses air and sends it into the cylinders. On the other hand, a supercharger uses the actual turning of the engine to cram more air in. It's getting to the point nowadays where most cars have a supercharger or a turbocharger because it means you can use a smaller engine

[05:22] and get better gas mileage but still have the same amount of power as a large engine. And now you're totally certified to talk about engines with actual car people. However, engines are connected to something and that's the transmission, which is the next thing

[05:36] we need to talk about. And there are two basic types of transmissions. One is an automatic gearbox and one is a manual. Automatic basically just means that the car can actually shift gears for you. Now, in most modern automatics, you can find paddles behind the wheel to control

[05:51] when the car shifts but it still the car doing the shifting for you Now compare that to a manual gearbox where you have to go around playing with a stick all day This is highly preferred to car enthusiasts because they love playing with sticks

[06:03] and it's also more satisfying and a more engaging driving experience than driving an automatic. So, if anyone says they're a car enthusiast, but they drive an automatic, you should probably ridicule them and make fun until they hang themselves. Any true car enthusiast would drive a manual.

[06:19] Now, a manual gearbox takes practice to learn how to drive, and you also have to deal with three pedals instead of just two. But that's why it's more fun. It's more engaging since there's more to do, and you're constantly kept busy and focused on the experience of driving.

[06:33] Now, that's basically all you need to know about transmissions. Just get a manual if you're into cars and want to have fun, and get an automatic if you want people to know you're a loser. So, we have power being generated in the engine, being sent through the gearbox, but now it needs to go through the wheels.

[06:48] and there's actually three different ways of doing this. One way of doing this is all-wheel drive, where you send power to all of the wheels. This is common in Subarus, and it's best for low-grip environments like snow or mud.

[07:00] However, it's very inefficient because there's a lot of power loss due to all the components. It's also pretty expensive and heavy. A cheaper and lighter alternative to all-wheel drive is rear-wheel drive. This is where you only send power to the rear wheels.

[07:14] This is very popular for performance cars as it offers the best blend of grip and lightness. That's because whenever you accelerate in a car, weight shifts to the back, and therefore, there's more force on the rear wheels, which gives you better traction.

[07:28] Now, compare this to the last drive type, which is front-wheel drive. Front-wheel drive is the cheapest and lightest way to build a car, but it's not as good for traction because when you accelerate, weight lifts off of the front wheels as it goes to the back, and then you get less traction in the

[07:44] front where your drive is. Now, this doesn't really matter for the majority of cars or people driving them, so pretty much any civic or normal commuter car is front-wheel drive. It's the cheapest drive type to build, it also gets the best fuel economy because there's less distance for the power to

[07:59] travel, and it's also safer because most people know how to drive a front-wheel drive car, whereas a rear-wheel drive car can be unpredictable to those without experience. Now, while you can send power anywhere, you can also place the engine anywhere. You can put the engine in the front of

[08:14] the car, in the middle, or even in the rear. By far, the most common place to put the engine is in the front. But, if you get an exotic car like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari or McLaren, usually the engine will be in the middle. Since the engine is usually the heaviest component in the car,

[08:29] and it's in the middle, it means the car can rotate easily so it handles better. Now, rear engine is really only used by Porsche and it's good because you get a lot of weight on the rear wheels which gives you better traction. Now all this is

[08:42] great and all but there's one thing you really need to understand and that is a limited slip differential. So in 95% of cars you have what's called an open differential This means the power takes the path of least resistance so if you spin one tire then that tire is gonna instantly start spinning really fast and the other won have any power going to it But if you have a limited slip differential then whenever you start spinning one wheel the other on the other side will start spinning at

[09:07] the same speed. This means you can drift, and you get better traction because both tires are spinning trying to grab the pavement. So that's really the most important thing that any sports car needs besides the manual gearbox. So now we've talked about the engine, the transmission, and the

[09:21] drivetrain, and I said you can combine these things in different ways to create any type of car. So here are some of the basic types. The first is what I call an econobox. This is basically your Chevy Spark or your old Hyundai. These are usually front engine and front wheel drive, and they're

[09:36] made for people who don't really care about driving. They're not meant to be fun or luxurious, just meant to get you from point A to point B. Muscle cars, on the other hand, are quite different. They're meant to have tons of power and be really fun to drive in a straight line. They're usually

[09:51] pretty cheap and you can think of it like a Mustang or Camaro. A muscle car has to be rear wheel drive and it usually has a V8, sometimes even with a supercharger on it. These cars are big and heavy and they don't really go around corners, which is fine because the typical person

[10:07] who buys this car doesn't even know how the steering wheel works. Now moving on from muscle cars you have luxury cars. These often have the same large engine but it's meant to be more smooth and the interior are much nicer. Something like a Lexus LS400 has a smooth V8, while a Rolls-Royce

[10:24] Phantom has a silky V12. And now we move on to sports cars. These tend to be lighter and smaller than muscle or luxury cars, and they have less power. A muscle car will have overwhelming and

[10:37] intoxicating power, while a sports car has just enough, or maybe a lot, depending on how expensive of it is. It also has a bigger focus on handling than either of the prior categories, and these things tend to have little compromise. Oftentimes a sports car is like a regular Civic or Golf that

[10:53] just got converted to be a little bit more fun. Sometimes you have a purpose built like a coupe, which is meant to be just a sports car, but it still has a usable trunk and you can daily drive it. Now compare that to a supercar, which is a lot more compromised. It's focused on being really

[11:08] fast and really fun. It has a huge focus on handling and it tries to be super light and awesome looking. That means it has a tiny trunk, gets bad gas mileage, and if you try to daily it, you're probably going to want to hang yourself. Now, one step up even from that is hypercars.

[11:24] These are over a million dollars and these are Pidonis, Koenigseggs, Bugattis, things that are extremely exotic. They're usually mid-engine as well because, like I said earlier, it handles the best. If you want to see some awesome sports cars that you can buy for 10 grand or less,

[11:40] check out this video. Some have two turbos, some are all-wheel drive, and some are mid-engines, which, yeah, I said those are usually Ferraris, but the one in that video is like $5,000, and it's basically Ferraris, so the cars on that list are super cool, and they apply well even