Modern Motoring Or the Age of Gasoline

nacquainted with the principles which actuate the motor, that they are drawn with curiosity, then with absorbing in- terest to a knowledge of the mys- tery. These technical points are sim- ple yet necessary, and with no ex- tra amount of application may be readily understood and aptly ap- plied by the public in general. Motoring is already as widely diffused as to knowledge as is music, and possibly if it keeps up its rapid pace will be as popularly understood as horsemanship and possibly more so. The Age of Gasoline The abstruse technical points of the motor and chassis chassis means running gear and engine, in other words, auto in the nude, are adequately treated of in spe- cial books on the subject. See The Gasoline Automobile, Al- bert L. Clough The Horseless Age Self-Propelled Vehicles, James E. Homans, A. M., Theo. Audel Co. The Operation, Care and Repair of Automobiles. These books are purely technical and are of great value to the motorist, being devoted to the al- gebra of motoring. The four-cylinder engine of about 30 H. P. is the standard engine of manufacture and use. There is no lapping of the power impulses in the four-cylinder type, but each cylinder takes up the power stroke with such con- Modern Motoring, or stant and uniform continuity that the torque is practically constant. By this I mean that the power stroke in one cylinder starts as soon as the power stroke in one of the other cylinders ends. The four-cylinder engine is the me- dium of all the various merits and demerits of construction and does the work. They may event- ually put in a six where they for- merly supplied a four, but all users of the four will remember its many advantages. The phases through which each cylinder passes are intake, com- pression, power, exhaust. On the intake stroke downward the in- take valve is open and at near lower dead center it closes and the piston coming up compresses the gasoline mixture drawn in from the carburetor on the intake The Age of Gasoline stroke. At the top dead center at end of compression stroke a little before in fast running under load the gas is fired by the igni- tion apparatus through the spark plug and the power stroke ensues, the piston passing downward under impulse of the expanding gases to lower dead center again. Then follows the exhaust stroke, the piston coming up with the ex- haust valve open. Near top dead center it closes and immediately the intake stroke follows. Dur- ing compression and power strokes both intake and exhaust valves are closed. These cycles and phases of the engine follow in quick succession...