Parts of Vehicle's Air Intake System and Its Working

Air intake system is built and tuned for an automobile to experience maximum power and efficiency. Most of them are bolt up installations, making them an excellent add-on for easy power gains. A good air intake system allow continuous and clean air into the engine, thereby to achieve better mileage and optimum performance for your vehicle.

Parts of an air intake system
An air intake system is located behind the front grille, drawing air through a tube that goes in to the filter housing, which will be mixed with the vehicle's fuel and sent to the engine's cylinder. A modern automobile/ vehicle's air intake system has three main parts

• Air filter: It forms an important part of a vehicle's intake system through which the engine breathes. Any engine requires a mixture of air and fuel in order to run, and all the air first enters the system through the air filter. Air filter is located in a compartment of an air duct under the hood of the car.

• Mass Air Flow Sensor: This part of the air intake system is used to measure the mass of air that enters the fuel-injected internal combustion engine. Two common types of airflow sensors are in use for automobile engines.

• The hot wire

• The vane meter

• Throttle Body: It controls the amount of air entering the engine's combustion chamber. It is located near the mass flow sensor and in between the intake manifold and air filter box.

Working procedure of an air intake system
• In a carburetor equipped engine, the air comes in to air filter space.

• The main job of the air filter is to filter out dirt particles and other foreign matter present in the air, thus preventing them to enter and cause damage to the system.

• Air passing through the air filter reaches the carburetor and is blended with the fuel. Through the intake manifolds, the mixture of air and fuel is drawn into the cylinders.

• The mass airflow sensor/ air temperature sensor prevents the icing of the carburetor, where in its absence may lead to vehicle's stall. It also promotes vaporization of the fuel into the air stream. Also, it is used to measure the temperature of the air and allows cool air in, which occurs through closing and opening of the flap. Here the working of both types of airflow sensors have been mentioned for your understanding.

• In the hot wire type, a series of wires are embed in the air stream.

• Due to the rise in temperature, the electrical resistance increases thus limiting the current flow through the circuit.

• When air flows past the wire, it cools down, allowing more current to flow through the circuit, thus decreasing its resistance.

• The voltage signal developed goes to the main system where the fuel mixture is allowed to adjust.

• In the vane type, a flap is forced back by the incoming air. The more air coming in, the more the flap is pushed back.

• A potentiometer attached to the flap sends a voltage signal to the power-train control module.

• Also, a second vane present behind the first vane suppresses its movement thus giving more accurate measurement.

• The air from the mass flow sensor is directed to the throttle body for further process.

• Throttle body contains a bored housing that consists of throttle plate rotating on a shaft. The air that flows in to the engine is controlled by the throttle chamber.

• When the accelerator is released, the throttle plate closes and clogs air flow into the combustion chamber and when it is depressed it opens and allows air in to the engine.

• This process performed by the throttle body effectively controls the rate of combustion and speeds up the vehicle.

So, this is how the air enters the engine and the air intake system work. Having knowledge on this will lessen the ignorance when it comes to intake matters.

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