An 80's 4x4 adventure: not like that tho... Part 2

Well, I finally made a plan for getting back over to my buddies old work truck. I loaded up my main tools with my diagnostic basket containing the compression tester, vacuum pump with attachments, spark tester, timing light, my electrical boxes (just in case), some spare extraneous parts from inventory and all the toothbrushes, rags, solvents and small parts washing containers I thought I would need.

Hey Mr? Whats efficiency mean?

    Heya there, Machine Whisperer back again, and pondering the idea of efficiency.  I often get asked to define efficiency and to help other folks understand what it means and why it matters. I hope this can clarify a bit more for those of you who have asked or just wondered about it.  
    We hear about fuel efficiency in cars, high efficiency washers and high efficiency LED lighting in the home- how does it all tie together?  Simply put, efficiency is the amount of energy you get out of a system compared to the amount of energy that had to be put in.  When we use energy in whatever form, some of it gets lost in conversion.

I,C,P,E or Suck, Squish, Bang, Blow... an engine operates HOW?

A friend asked me the other day to diagnose the misfire on his little car and recommend how to fix it when we got onto a sidetracked into a discussion about how the engine actually functions and makes power.  I have answered this question so many times over the years for so many people that I figured I should just get it down in writing.  So here goes- Caution though, there be Physics ahead!
    This explanation needs to be fairly basic to accomplish the goal of assisting folk with no real physics background to get the ideas here.  I will not bore anyone with the math behind it, just the concepts and functional ideas.