Engine Basics – Getting to Know Your Stock Corvette

Internal combustion engines that are used in modern cars are fueled by two chemicals: gasoline and oxygen. For an engine to run the most efficiently, a specific ratio of gasoline to oxygen is necessary to efficiently burn the fuel in the combustion chamber. This is called the stoichiometric ratio, which is 14.7 parts oxygen to 1 part gasoline, or a 14.7:1 ratio. With that concept in mind, the science behind engine performance is to add more fuel to the engine. Simply put, more fuel means a bigger explosion, which equals more power. There is a catch: In order to add more fuel, there must also be more air. There are products available to naturally add air to your engine, such as cold air intakes and high performance air filters. These are designed to bring in more oxygen by allowing the filter to flow more freely or by using colder air that is denser and therefore has more oxygen in the air mixture.

However, there comes a point at which you cannot naturally aspirate any more oxygen into your engine. That means there is also a limit to how much fuel we can dump into the combustion chamber of the car. The next step is to force air into the engine, so that we can further increase the amount of fuel to the engine.

Rev Up the Power

When air intakes and special filters aren’t enough, you have two commonly used options to choose from. One option is a TURBOCHARGER, where a turbine is engineered to use the power from the exhaust flow to push air into the intake. The second option is a SUPERCHARGER. A supercharger uses the same theory as the turbocharger, except instead of being powered by the exhaust; it is driven by the crankshaft pulley. Each of these systems, as well as their designs, has seen a long debate on their efficiency due to the fact that power is consumed from the engine in order to produce more power.

Superchargers have long been the choice of racers, as they allow you to tune your car to run on a high oxygen-to-gasoline ratio. However, until the introduction of computer technology, they weren’t practical for street cars. Now that Superchargers are computer controlled, drivers can enjoy all the benefits of a Supercharger with on demand power without sacrificing the characteristics of your daily driver.

The E-Force Supercharger is a great example of bringing racing technology to everyday use. Designed specifically to add power to your street car, the E-Force gives you all the heart-pumping power of a racecar while retaining the daily driver attributes of your favorite 2005-2015 Corvette. In fact, depending on your driving habits, it may be possible to see fuel mileage gains. Although there are many great superchargers on the market, we’re going to feature the Edelbrock E-Force because of its user friendly features.

Street Legal and Environmentally Friendly

Worried about harming the environment? How about passing Emissions? Staying legal and protecting the environment are not issues when installing a E-Force. The E-Force is 50-state legal. Edelbrock received a blanket Executive Order (E.O.) number (D-215-85) from the California Air Resources Board (C.A.R.B.) for all E-Force Supercharger Systems granting an exemption from the prohibitions of Section 27156 of the California Vehicle Code thereby making these systems completely street legal.

So if more power is what you’re after, the E-Force Supercharger is a great way to get hard-hitting power when you want it and keep the daily drive when you don’t.