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On Tuesday I made a flying visit to the other side of the country where my car had a timing chain tensioner fitted. This tiny little piece of metal and plastic keeps the upper timing chain correctly tensioned, which in turn makes sure that the twin overhead cams are turning in correct relation to each other, which in turn ensures that the valves feeding and exhausting the pistons open and close at the correct time.
Of course, that's all mechanically abstract crap, particularly if you're not interested in how engines work. The practical upshot of the repair is far more obvious; the car used have an odd sort of "flat spot" in acceleration around 2000 to 3000 RPM, where you'd be leaning on the GO pedal and the car would slowly crawl its way up the rev counter; since I tend to drive the car in the 2000 to 3000 RPM range normally, this was obviously pretty annoying. Now there's a pretty much constistent pull right from idle up to somewhere north of 5000 RPM, beyond which I'm not investigating in the interests of not having to replace more parts. Whee!
Of course, that's all mechanically abstract crap, particularly if you're not interested in how engines work. The practical upshot of the repair is far more obvious; the car used have an odd sort of "flat spot" in acceleration around 2000 to 3000 RPM, where you'd be leaning on the GO pedal and the car would slowly crawl its way up the rev counter; since I tend to drive the car in the 2000 to 3000 RPM range normally, this was obviously pretty annoying. Now there's a pretty much constistent pull right from idle up to somewhere north of 5000 RPM, beyond which I'm not investigating in the interests of not having to replace more parts. Whee!
