Engine Power and Performance Engineering: A Practical Guide to Combustion, Airflow, Torque, Horsepower, Fuel Delivery, Thermodynamics, and Efficiency (The Modern Engineer's Library)

What actually happens inside your engine when you press the throttle?

If you've ever stared at a dyno chart and wondered why torque and horsepower cross at that one specific number, or found yourself nodding along in a forum thread about boost pressure without fully understanding the physics behind it, this book was written for you.

Here's the honest truth: most people working on engines today, whether they're mechanics, hobbyists, engineering students, or serious enthusiasts, learned what they know through trial and error, secondhand advice, or piecing together fragments from videos and forums. That approach gets you far enough to be dangerous, but not far enough to actually understand why an engine behaves the way it does. Have you ever wondered why two engines with identical horsepower numbers can feel completely different to drive? Or why a compression ratio increase that sounds great on paper can quietly destroy a piston if the tuning isn't right?

Engine Power and Performance Engineering answers those questions properly, from the ground up.

This is not another surface level guide that throws around terms like "volumetric efficiency" and "air fuel ratio" without ever explaining what they actually mean or why they matter. Instead, you'll work through the real mechanics of combustion, airflow, thermodynamics, and fuel delivery in a way that connects theory directly to practice. You'll understand not just what a turbocharger does, but why a smaller unit spools faster and a larger one makes more peak power, and how to figure out which one actually fits your goals.

Inside, you'll find clear, methodical coverage of:

• How combustion actually works, from ignition through expansion, and why timing matters more than most people realize
• The real relationship between torque, horsepower, and RPM, explained without the confusion that usually surrounds it
• Forced induction engineering, including turbocharger sizing, compressor maps, and boost control done right
• Fuel delivery systems, injector sizing, and the fuel pressure calculations that keep an engine safe under load
• Structural engineering considerations, crankshafts, connecting rods, cylinder heads, and what actually makes them fail
• Cooling, lubrication, and the reliability engineering that separates a build that lasts from one that doesn't
• A practical, disciplined tuning methodology, built around real data instead of guesswork
• Where combustion engine technology is actually heading, including hybridization and emerging fuel technologies

Ask yourself this: do you want to keep guessing, or do you want to actually understand the machine you're working on?

Written by Tony R. Olivieri, this book is built for readers who want genuine technical depth without unnecessary complexity, whether you're a student building your foundation, a technician expanding into performance work, or an enthusiast who simply wants to stop nodding along and start actually knowing. Every chapter moves logically from principle to practice, with real formulas, real workflows, and real case studies that show how these ideas play out on an actual engine, not just on a whiteboard.

If you're ready to move past guesswork and start engineering with real understanding, this book will get you there.