HP, I understand what you are looking for. You have a basic 'book learned' understanding of the workings in a combustion engine and you want to expand on that by being able to see how the parts truly interact with each other. While I agree it's good to have a solid knowledge base of what you are working on, until you get your hands dirty you will truly never understand.

How many of you that are telling him to go read more have ever laughed at somebody for being 'book smart' and not truly knowing how something works first hand?