
Ask HN: I love programming, but I want to learn *everything* about my van. Tips? - mercer
I&#x27;m in my thirties and never owned a car until I got this campervan.<p>So now not only do I have this magical machine that can take me places in ways that I never quite appreciated before, but said machine is also my home, magically offering water via an electric pump, electricity via a secondary battery that should but doesn&#x27;t charge when driving, and various other comforts.<p>I&#x27;m sure this might sound silly to those for whom cars are a part of daily life, but when I&#x27;m driving, just the engine sound and the terrible smell of what is either the toilet&#x2F;gray waste tank sloshing or something related to the engine, well, it&#x27;s intoxicating.<p>And I don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s because it&#x27;s an older vehicle (late 80s), but I basically go to fifth and final gear by 80 Km&#x2F;h, so it feels like the thing is on overdrive whenever I&#x27;m going 100 or occasionally 120 on the highway.<p>Mostly I just marvel at this thing that apparently relatively low-schooled mechanics can fix part by part, and yet somehow with a a few liters of liquid can pull a hefty amount of weight across highways at 100 Km&#x2F;h. I knew this things in the abstract, but finally experiencing them with my own hands on the wheel is something else. I&#x27;ve been a very &#x27;virtual&#x27; person since I was 8 years old or so.<p>Anyways, long intro, but being the hacker &#x27;type&#x27; I am, it bothers me that I understand very little of how this whole &#x27;combustible engine&#x27; works. Or for that matter the 12V electric system that I should get an expensive &#x27;inverter&#x27; for charging my laptop at 230V instead of just a 12V-connector charger which so far has proven just as good.<p>I sort of vaguely get this, but I want to really understand it. So what would you suggest? What are the best resources for a pretty decent computery hackery guy to learn about the dirty real-world hardware of late eighties car engines and their shoddy electrical systems?<p>I suppose I could&#x27;ve just posted the previous paragraph but I&#x27;m bad at brevity.
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h2odragon
Hackaday has been doing a series on cars; starting here
[https://hackaday.com/2019/12/02/how-to-get-into-cars-
choosin...](https://hackaday.com/2019/12/02/how-to-get-into-cars-choosing-
your-first-project-car/)

Gearheads are just a slightly different flavor of hacker; once you find some
you'll be able to talk to them fairly quickly and they're likely to enjoy
sharing their passion.

Good luck, there's a lot of fun to be had there.

~~~
mercer
> Gearheads are just a slightly different flavor of hacker; once you find some
> you'll be able to talk to them fairly quickly and they're likely to enjoy
> sharing their passion.

Yeah, what sparked my desire to dig a bit deeper was that I really enjoyed
spending time at garage with the mechanic. His approach to things often
reminded me of what I do, except not so virtual.

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Nextgrid
If you want to understand how an engine works I highly recommend watching
Mustie1's YouTube channel. He restores old engines and that often involves
taking them apart and rebuilding them. Modern engines have more electronics,
but the principles are exactly the same.

