THE MIXER

The carburetor flickered out of existence in modern American automobiles in 1990, but nearly 30 years later, those of us with the inclination can walk into a motorcycle dealership and ride out on a brand-new carbureted machine. Despite the device’s longevity, it isn’t widely understood. To this day, when people talk of accelerating, they say, “I gave it the gas.” That’s a misnomer.

Whether our vehicle’s engine has modern digital fuel injection or carburetors, the action we take to accelerate is to open the throttle, which controls only the flow of air into our engine’s cylinders. Some other system then adds