Stoicheometry
If you had a bone-stock S13 Nissan 240SX back in the tuning movement’s halcyon days of the ‘90s and early ‘00s, and you wanted to add forced induction to your KA24DE engine, dozens of suppliers would be happy to sell you all the necessary hardware. But if you wanted to actually tune the engine, you were probably out of luck. Most folks bought one or two or ten piggy-back systems (like a rising-rate fuel pressure regulator) that controlled one or two functions, and prayed that everything would work together.
Eventually, tuning companies offered standalone engine management systems that were essentially plug-and-play but allowed a tuner to customize individual functions like the rev limiter, nitrous oxide injection, or specific cold-weather maps. Until then, you could technically buy a completely blank-slate standalone system and do everything yourself. From scratch. Getting any engine to work properly and just idle smoothly is actually extraordinarily complicated. Assuming you could get all four spark plugs firing and those big pistons banging around, you could begin fine-tuning. Your guide post would be stoicheometry.
Stoicheometry, if you remember from high school chemistry, is a chemical mixture in which elements combine to achieve a certain reaction. In cars, stoicheometry refers to the ratio of air to fuel in which there’s just enough oxygen to completely burn the fuel. It’s typically 14.7:1 air to fuel. It’s smooth and efficient. It’s ideal.
Stoicheometry comes from the Greek word stoicheion, which means a baseline or first step. It is similar to steichein, meaning “to step.” In the original written language of the letter to the Galatians, it can be found in chapter 5:
“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5:25-26)
As you daily examine your heart, tuning it and fine-tuning it by the power of God’s grace, your guide post is keeping in step with the Spirit. It is ideal, this measure of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), in which a person can be an instrument of God’s manifested power and loving unity with all of God’s creation.
It is also fixed. Extra amounts of some other substance, like selfishness, cannot simply be added to this ratio if you want things to run smoothly. Nor can you run it without certain substances, like love.
This stoicheometric step-keeping with the Spirit is God’s desire for you today. Whether you’re after big power, a smooth or easy day, or a conservation of precious fuel (time, money, or energy), start with keeping step with the Spirit. Pray. Listen. Read the Bible. Engage in conversations with other Christ-followers. Worship God. Don’t run lean, and don’t run rich. Ask God to help tune your heart in a way that gets you where he needs you to be, one step at a time.
The late ‘90s were hard years for Nissan USA. Within a four-year period, the American market said goodbye to four great cars: the 240SX, 300ZX, Sentra SE-R, and 200SX SE-R. The sporty car market at the time favored sports sedans (which Nissan could have filled with a modern 510) and 2-seat roadsters (which Nissan could have filled with a resurrected 1600/2000 roadster). But Nissan didn’t respond to these trends. They just weren’t keeping step with market demands.
John V16 is the intersection of God and cars. Please support our work and donate a V16-powered 1940 Cadillac Series 90 Sixteen to John V16. Or share this article with a friend.
