General Motors is scrambling to rectify the engine failures for its 6.2-liter V8 truck engine – one of which bit the dust after only 4 miles.

Removing the oil pan provides a spectacular view of the carnage. There are palm-sized pieces of the piston and connecting rod in there, in addition to lots of finer pieces of metal. We ultimately ...

Conventional gasoline engines have a basic fault; their reciprocating parts (pistons, connecting rods, etc.) must be stopped and started thousands of times per minute. This wastes power ...

Besides the fact that there are no fuel-air explosions involved, these pistons are also double ... the cylinders also acted as connecting rods, tilting back and forth as the crankshaft rotates.

The cavities you see here are designed to fit the pistons and connecting rods. Here, the gas ignites and pushes the two components up and down. This causes the connecting rods to spin the ...