With gas prices like they are today, putting fuel into your vehicle is a topic that is on everyone’s mind. But what happens once the nozzle has been removed and the car is full of gas? You probably just get in, turn the key, and you are on your way, never truly thinking that you just put gas in the rear of the vehicle, yet the engine is in the front. Gravity is not on your side either, so how does the fuel get from the tank to burn within your engine? The fuel system is one of the most crucial parts in running an internal combustion engine.
When you put fuel into your car it builds up in your fuel tank, a big usually plastic or metal container located in the rear of the vehicle. The fuel tanks on newer cars have baffles inside of them to make sure that the fuel does not slosh around. They also have an inlet tube, outlet tube, and a vent. This vent is not venting freely into the atmosphere but instead runs through a filter and into the engine to let the vapors burn. The liquid fuel is pumped into the carburetor or fuel injectors by a fuel pump. The pump allows the fuel to be forcefully pushed through the fuel lines without running into problems like gravity pulling fuel away from the engine. There are two main types of fuel pumps, mechanical and electrical. The mechanical fuel pumps were made for the older carbureted cars, and the electrical pumps are what cars with fuel injection nowadays use. The electric fuel pumps can be low pressure or high pressure, making a huge difference when replacing them.
The fuel is pumped then towards the engine where it is turned into a vapor gas to be burned by either the carburetor or fuel injectors. If you catch my next blog I will be writing of fuel injection and carburetion.
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