Sparky the Piston

The Piston

Written and Illustrated by: Timothy Byrne

Copyright © 2020 by Timothy Byrne All rights reserved.

Hey! I’m Sparky the Piston and today I’m going to show you around my Home, it’s a 2018 Dodge SRT Demon! It looks complicated but it’s not.

Fun Fact: the term HorsePower is reference to how much power it takes a horse to move a certain weight in a set amount of Time. The Dodge Demon has 840 horsepower, the equivalent of 840 horses working at once!

This is the Engine Bay, where the giant 6.2 Liter V8 Engine sits! Let’s take a closer look at the engine to understand it.

Did you know that Dodge was founded in 1900 by Brothers John and Horace Dodge who both worked for Henry Ford. They founded the Dodge Brothers motor company to go against Ford Motor.

After removing the Engine, Sparky can better show us how everything works together.

We see a lot going on here but let’s focus on what I circled. That is the Timing Belt. It is the first step to getting a car to move.

The Timing Belt is responsible for making sure everything on the engine is working at the right time. But most importantly, it makes sure the Camshaft that I’m holding rotates inside the engine. The Camshaft is what me and my 7 Piston siblings live on, when it rotates every Piston will jump up and down at different times and the Timing Belt makes sure we all go at the right time.

We dismantle the Engine even more so we can see the block and Sparky's home, the Combustion Chamber

This is the bare Engine Block. From here we can see the Camshaft sticking out on the bottom. Inside each of those big holes is where a Piston sits. The Camshaft will turn and make each Piston jump at

This Spark Plug is the key component to making the explosion

different times and reach the top of the Combustion Chamber. As the Pistons go down in the chamber, a mixture of gas and air will come inside and rest on the top of the Piston until it is pushed up and compressed against a Spark Plug, creating an explosion! The explosion will flow out of the chamber and into the Exhaust Manifold.

Did you know that the term V8 is reference to the V shape that the 8 Combustion Chambers form!

Below is a cut open Transmission so you can see the gears inside

After the Engine is the Transmission. It chooses what gear to put the car in just like you chose what shoes to wear depending on the weather! The transmission in this car has 9 different gears to chose from with 1 of them being Reverse.

The transmission is connected to the Drivetrain which is what sends the power from the front of the car to the back.

Many modern cars are “automatic” meaning the transmission will select the gear for the driver while a “manual” transmission requires the driver to engage the Clutch and change the gear themselves

Let’s move to the back of the Car!

You can see the black Drivetrain going into the Rear Axel

The Drivetrain will go underneath the entire car, from the engine to the Rear Axel. The Rear Axel is in charge of taking the power from the engine and separating it equally and sending the power to the wheels. This car is Rear Wheel Drive, so it only needs a Rear Axel for the car to move while the front 2 wheels are in charge of steering direction.

Do not let the picture fool you. This car is very long and all the pieces on it are all very large.

Do you remember the explosion from the Combustion Chamber?

Well it goes into the Exhaust Manifold on the left and flows through the pipes all the way to the exit on the right side of the car. But it passes through very important sensors to make sure the gas is safe to leave the vehicle.

It also passes through the big square boxes which are mufflers.

They make sure the exhaust isn’t too loud from the factory and removing them will make the car louder!

The final piece of this puzzle is the Brakes. They make sure that each tire comes to a full safe stop when the driver needs them to. This car has 4 very big brakes on each wheel and they all make sure the driver can maintain a safe speed and stop when needed!

I told you guys it wasn’t too complicated!

Look at this Demon doing a wheelie!

When everything comes together we get a car that is more powerful than any other car produced in the world

Thank You for letting me show you how this Dodge Demon works! I had so much fun and hope you guys did too!