The Cylinder Head
- What is it?
- How does it work?
What is it?
The cylinder head is the top half of the engine. It sits on top of the block and completes the pressurised setup that allows the engine to work.
Another cast iron lump, the cylinder head allows the pistons to move up and down internally into four machined cylinders. The cylinder head is also the section that allows the combustion of the air and fuel mixture to compress and explode via carefully channeled sections at the top of each of the cylinders/
What Does it Do?
As mentioned earlier the cylinder head is responsible for the flow of the pistons inside the cylinders. With the block and the cylinder head bolted together the piston channels are much longer and run a good two thirds vertically of the height of the engine you see in your engine bay.
The head also allows the flow of the oil, air and water from the block to be passed around the outside of the cylinders and mechanical parts to help keep cool. This all run through individual channels and are not allowed to mix, especially the water and the oil. The oil channels also pass oil to the top of the head where the Cams and valves sit.
At the top of the cylinder head there are mountings for more components these are the cams, spark/glow plugs. valves and all of other the components dedicated to keep them all running.
A rocker cover sits on the very top of the head to keep everything covered and looking nice, and to also stop your oil being thrown everywhere.
Internally the head allows the pistons to move up and down but at the very top of the cylinders is a channelled section that is commonly known as the combustion chamber.
The combustion chamber is where the action happens. The valves of the engine open to allow a mixture of fuel and air to be passed to the chamber. As the vales close the piston pushes the mixture to the very top of the cylinder causing a powerful pressure. A perfectly timed spark (on petrol engines) ignites the pressurised mixture causing an explosion. This explosion is the burst of power that allows your vehicle to move. madness eh?