Compression ratio: It is the ratio of the cylinder volume above the piston at BDC to the volume above the piston at TDC.

Common rail injection: A diesel engine fuel supply system in which a single pump delivers fuel at very high pressure, say, 1400 bar to a…

Combustion chamber: The small space in the engine cylinder head and/or piston into which air-fuel mixture (in petrol engines) or air (in diesel engines) is…

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG): Alternative fuel consisting of natural gas compressed from 160 to 200 bar.

Clearance volume: The volume of the engine cylinder (including the combustion chamber volume) above the piston when it is in the TDC position.

Circuit breaker: A switch which protects an electrical circuit from overload by opening the circuit when the current flow exceeds a pre-determined level.

Choke: A butterfly valve fitted at the top of the air horn of a carburettor to provide rich mixture during starting of engine.

Check engine light: The malfunction indicator light that the vehicle's on-board computer illuminates when it senses a fault in the engine.

Cetane rating: A measure of the auto-ignition value of diesel fuel. It is defined as the percentage of cetane in a mixture of cetane and…

Cetane: n-hexadecane (C16H34) is a straight chain paraffin, which is assigned the cetane number of 100.

Catalytic converter: It is a cylindrical unit installed into the exhaust system of a vehicle, between the exhaust manifold and the silencer. Due to the…

Catalyst: A material that can cause a chemical reaction of other substances, without being a part of that reaction. Examples in the engine catalytic converter…

Carburettor: A device in an engine which supplies correct amount of the air-fuel mixture of correct strength under all operating conditions.

Capacitor Discharge Ignition (CDI): It is a type of automotive electronic ignition system which uses capacitor discharge current output to fire the spark plugs. It…

Camshaft position sensor (CMP): A sensor which sends signals about the rotational position of the camshaft to the ECU, which enables the computer to time…