In a conventional application, there are three rings per piston. The top ring is called the compression ring. Its purpose is to seal the combustion gas pressure, transfer heat from the piston to the ...

High-output engines live in a world of brutal cylinder pressures, extreme temperatures and razor-thin safety margins, and the humble piston sits at the center of that storm. When power levels climb, ...

The team at Garage 54 replace aluminum pistons inside of an engine with custom-made plastic pistons. The engine, surprisingly, runs for longer than it has any right to run. Garage 54 specializes in ...

Explore how boxer engines really work, why they’re not just “flat” engines, and how Porsche and Subaru kept a 120-year-old design alive in some of today’s quickest cars.

If you are a motorhead, an unusual engine will immediately get your attention. Most vehicles today have either an inline or V-shaped configuration, so anything peculiar will immediately stick out. If ...

The story of how Honda developed an oval-piston race engine that ultimately failed but still made history along the way.

Engines have remained fairly true to form over the years without a lot of unusual changes, but a new Ferrari design could change everything.

At the heart of an internal combustion engine lies a series of cylinders, cylindrical chambers that house the fiery combustion process. These cylinders, arranged in various configurations such as ...

Rotary engines (also known as Wankel engines and Wankel rotary engines) are quite different from piston or "reciprocating" engines. One of the distinguishing features is that they don't need valves to ...