The battery supplies the power necessary to start the engine when the ignition switch is is turned on.

Modern car engines are cooled by liquid which circulates through the engine block and cylinder heads absorbing excess heat. This liquid is made up of half water and half antifreeze (commonly, ethylene glycol) which both keeps the water from freezing at low temperatures and raises its boiling point making heat transfer more efficient.

A head gasket is a gasket that sits between the engine block and cylinder heads to seal the cylinders to ensure maximum compression and avoid leakage of coolant or engine oil into the cylinders.

The ignition coil steps up the 12 volts available from the battery or alternator to a voltage of 30,000 or more volts at the spark plug. Converting a lower voltage input into a higher voltage output makes the ignition coil a step-up transformer.

Because a compressed spring will ex­tend violently, shock absorbers must be used to dampen the spring’s compression and extension cycles. Struts combine the spring and shock into one unit