Can You Name These Engine Parts in 7 Minutes?

Alternators produce alternating current, which is converted to direct current by auxiliary parts. Alternators became increasingly important as cars gained a lot of electrical creature comforts, like heated seats.

The answer. of course, is "dipstick." There's a cruder version of this insult, but we can't say it here.

"Turbocharging" takes its name from the use of the turbine to force gases back into the combustion chamber for extra compression. A supercharger works the same way but, to avoid turbo lag, is powered by the car's electrical system.

It isn't just vehicles that use catalytic converters. Found in fuel-burning stoves and heaters, they use a chemical reaction to convert harmful emissions to less-harmful ones.

Fun fact: A skull and crossed pistons is the symbol of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. They are the traditional rivals of the Hell's Angels.

In general, a gasket is a seal. A head gasket keeps the cylinder from losing compression, which would make the engine lose power.

The engine block is where the magic happens! Or, at least, where the essentials of combustion occur.

A chief engineering problem in making the earliest cars, trucks, etc, was getting the power generated by the up-and-down motion the cylinders to "change direction," so to speak, and spin the wheels. The crankshaft is an important part of that, transferring the energy generated by the combustion process to the powertrain.

An intake manifold supplies the fuel/air mixture to the combustion cylinders. An exhaust manifold takes the exhaust gases from the combustion process and shunts them all into one pipe.

The fan, one of the simplest human inventions for keeping cool, is still essential to the functioning of modern cars. Of course, if your serpentine belt includes the fan, it too can be credited with its role in keeping things cool.

The name is apt — this part distributes electricity. The reason the distributor has to do this in a particular order is that the cylinders must fire in a certain side-to-side order for balance. Otherwise, the engine would rock violently enough to shake the car.

Belts of various kinds have been essential to the workings of machines since the first days of engineering. The fan belt runs the cooling fan in the engine, hence the name.

Magnetos aren't entirely gone; some airplanes still use them in case of an electrical failure. It's also possible that engineers liked the cool, atomic-age name so much they couldn't let them go completely obsolete.

The camshaft rotates pear-shaped plates, whose intermittent pressure causes the valves to open and close. This part of the engine is the source of all those commercials gloating over an engine's "double overhead cam."

A car's battery looks sizable and impressive, but it often has only 12.6 volts, as we mention elsewhere in this quiz. The rest of the electricity that makes the engine work and provides all those enjoyable extras — like the radio — are amplified within the engine.

If you don't change the filter, the new, clean oil will get dirtier much more quickly. Keeping the engine oil free of gunk is critical to keeping the engine running well for years.

This is a change from older flathead engines. In those, the valves were in the cylinder block beside the piston.

In the movie, "Road to Perdition," a boy is asked what the clutch does, and says, "it clutches." Well, not exactly. The clutch is several discs that connect and disconnect shafts, meaning it is the key connection between the engine and drive train. When you take your foot off the clutch pedal, you are actually "letting out" the clutch, not engaging it. Many people get this backward.

Unsurprisingly, the rocker arm is named for its characteristic motion. We would have liked for it to have been invented by Alice Cooper on his day off, but sadly, that's not so.

The starter motor is what comes to life when you crank the ignition. It powers the first two strokes of the four-stroke cycle, after which the process becomes self-perpetuating.

Your car battery doesn't actually have much more voltage than the one you'd put in a smoke alarm. The ignition coil, sometimes called the spark coil, increases it until it's capable of firing the spark plugs, which is essential to the combustion process.

Of course, many engine parts are hot to the touch when the ignition's first shut off. But trying to take the cap off the radiator in an overheat situation is a great way to give yourself a nasty steam burn.

A "poppet valve" was sometimes called a "puppet valve" in earlier days. Both terms come from the idea of the valve being controlled from above and making an up-and-down motion, like a puppet.

A propelling nozzle is a part of a gas turbine. These are used in jet engines, which have turbofan engines.

A cylinder, in geometry, is a three-dimensional figure defined by two circles, one at each end (or you could just visualize a can). In the engine, it's where the fuel-air mixture is compressed by the piston and ignited by a spark from the spark plug.

You might remember the solenoid from its use in the "War of the Worlds" remake. Tom Cruise's mechanically-inclined character suggests that replacing the solenoid in a car will correct the ignition failure caused by an electromagnetic pulse.

The wrist pin doesn't just connect the piston and connecting rod. It also allows greater flexibility, letting the rod adapt to the motion of the piston without breaking.

The full definition of a flywheel is a bit complex (it involves inertia), but put simply, it "resists" and smooths out the intermittent energy produced by the constantly moving pistons.

This is a protective housing for the crankshaft and its connecting rods. It's also oddly fun to say aloud.

The advent of distributorless ignition systems might have been progress in terms of engine design. However, it ruined a good theft-protection and drunk-driving prevention strategy.

Sorry, dipstick, you're part of the lubrication system, but somewhat less than essential. It's the oil pump that gets engine oil where it needs to be, keeping everything running well.

Many veteran mechanics have a story about breaking off a spark plug in the block. The best ones will also tell you the first step in dealing with it: Go have a cup of coffee or take a walk until you're not upset any more and can approach the problem with a cool head.

A multi-accessory belt, as the name implies, replaced a system that used several belts to run engine parts, such as the water pump and the alternator which is nice. The downside? If this belt breaks, a lot goes wrong at once.

Strictly speaking, only overhead cam engines contain a part that could be called a tappet. In fact, a tappet is a fairly general term, meaning "an outcropping part that causes linear motion," However, it's associated enough with engines that car experts Tom and Ray Magliozzi called themselves, "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers" on their long-running radio show.

The coolant reservoir works with the radiator, storing excess coolant until it's needed. If this part leaks, you could be in for a long walk.