Quote:
Originally Posted by onefasteg
I was reading an article where only 30% of fule is burned in the cylinder and 70% is pushed out.
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i think you just misunderstood what the article was saying. the fuel is burned very close to 100% if an engine is properly maintained, its where the energy goes that is around those numbers.
any internal combustion process that turns heat into mechanical energy has a theoretical maximum efficiency of 40%. that being said, because thats the absolute maximum you'll never see it.
in general, you see about 1/3 of the energy go out the exhaust, 1/3 out your cooling system, and only 1/3 into powering the car. so if you were to say that you were only converting 30% of the energy in the gas to usable mechanical energy you'd be about right.