mrcheerful . wrote:
"PC Paul" wrote in message
...
Johannes wrote:
Chris Bacon wrote:

Ian Stirling wrote:
Current car engines are about 25% at best efficient, so 75% of
power goes out the exhaust pipe wasted.

I thought most was lost through the radiator.

Strangely enough, cooling though the radiator is just as important
as the heating in the combustion for achieving high efficiency. You
can only extract mechanical energy between two temperatures; the
larger the gap, the more efficient.

So what does the radiator cool that forms the 'cold' part of that
pairing?

The driver's head?


I suspect that may be the case here.

While the theory is basically sound, last time I looked my car didn't have a
Stirling engine under the bonnet...

Which recent cars do have chargecoolers, or even intake air coolers which
are cooled by the rad? I know none of mine have...