5 Technologies That Improve Internal Combustion Engines

TreeHugger.com:

5 Fuel-Saving Technologies
In the long run, the internal combustion engine (ICE) is on the way out and electric motors are on the way in, but ICEs have been around for so loooong that we should be careful about announcing their demise. They're going to stick around a while longer, and so it's very important to make them as efficient and clean as possible.

Car and Driver looks at 5 fuel-saving technologies that are keeping the ICE relevant (if far from ideal). As they say, they still work on basically the same principle as they ever did, but old 4-cylinder engines produced about 20 horsepower while modern ones can generate up to 250 hp while being cleaner and burning less gas. Read on for more details on the 5 fuel-saving technologies: Clean diesel, direct injection, cylinder deactivation, turbochargers, and variable valve timing and lift.

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Comments

[markusmarkus]

BMW is selling cars with diesel engines that use 4 of the 5 technologies - their engines don't use cylinder deactivation. And, these diesel engines are CLEANER (emission-wise) than comparable gasoline engines. Think diesel engined cars are slow? The new BMW 335d will do 0-60 in 6 seconds flat. And, Image doing 85mph while getting 50mpg. Leave it up to the Germans to figure it all out.

[LarBear]

I got a article from my Niece who wanted to know what I thought of Newt Gingrich pushing a Petition for Offshore (and other ) Drilling...
http://www.wefilterit.com/products.htm Franz Oil Filter... Invented in 1962... Uses a toilet paper roll to filter the oil in the engine... Never have to change the oil in the engine... Just change filter and add enough oil to replace that soaked up in Toilet Paper Roll... Sooooo, Mr Newtster, how many barrels of oil per year less would we need if no one ever had to changed their oil???
Bureau of Transportation Statistics. These are the details for 2001 (last most comprehensive US-wide data available). There are 235,331,382 vehicles. That @ say average vehicle = 6 quarts oil =1,411,988,292 = 42 US Gallons /barrel = 33,618,768 Barrels... Average vehicle 15,000 per year driving = change Oil every 5,000 miles = 3 changes per year (Conservative estimate) so 33,618,768 Barrels X 3 = 1,000,856,304 Barrels saved per year... Isn't 1 billion what we import of foreign oil per year? Answer: Overall U.S. oil imports, including crude oil and oil products, sank to their lowest first-half level since 2003, at less than 13 million barrels per day. 365 days @ 13 million barrels per day = 4,745 Million barrels per year... That makes it less then 1/2 billion if I calculated correctly...
Not on every vehicle speaks to Oil Company and Auto Manufacture co-operation...

[markusmarkus]

Unfortunately, the toilet paper filter is bs. It's filtering capability is less than that of a good oil filter from one of the major manufacturers. Also, engine oil is changed because the additives - anti-oxidants, sludge inhibitors, viscosity modifiers, etc. - lose their effectiveness due to heat, combustion blow-by, condensation etc. If this "technology" was really so great we'd have it in our cars now. It isn't and we don't.

As far as "Oil Company and Auto Manufacture co-operation" - the auto manufactureres are in it for the money, and the money only. Oil companies has zero sway over auto manufacturers.

[JScott]

And I thought a Supercharger was better than a Turbocharger as there is no turbo lag. One problem tho I've noticed is that super and turbo charged light duty passenger cars for the most part the owners manual DOES NOT recommend trailer towing any load with them, violating the warranty. Auto experts please enlighten.

[mamacat]

As I understand it, it depends on what you mean by "better."
A supercharger gets its energy directly from the rotating parts of the internal combustion engine. For two-cycle diesel engines, a supercharger is a necessity. Also, for engines that spend a lot of time at high altitudes, a supercharger can make the difference between useful and just barely usable.

The turbocharger gets its energy directly from the exhaust of the engine, as opposed to tapping into one of the rotating shafts of the ICE. There is a power lag, but it is not noticeable in most applications.

[LarBear]

JScott....

Not an expert, but did drive a Mack turbo charged dump truck towing a pup... (Long tongue extends trailer way behind)... One had to keep an eye on the Pyrometer (exhaust temperature) if the engine started to lug and be ready to downshift as the heat built up fast... Especially when loaded with a full 80,000 lbs... Speed did not matter, only lugging the engine... I suspect it has to do with the additional exhaust pressure, and the hot exhaust spinning the turbo, not freely escaping...

[Podewumun]

There are already small, incredibly simple and inexpensive hydrogen-production units on the market that can be retrofitted onto a standard ICE that increase mpg from 20-60%, depending on the size of the vehicle.
Leave it up to good old boy "shade tree" mechanics to do what the geniuses in Detroit either can't or won't do.

[markusmarkus]

BS! If it existed we would have it in our cars now.

[GrayOwl]

I'll leave the technological aspects of this to those who know a lot more than I do. But of this, I am certain: Americans who own automobiles usually count them as their second-largest expenditures (behind housing, whether owned or rented). We can talk about what we WANT them to do with gasoline-powered cars. Or we can talk abut what they ACTUALLY WILL do with them. (Hint: They will not drive them to the side of the road and abandon them, leaving a multi-thou­sand-dolla­r investment to rust away.) So we need parallel reasearch that will (1) quickly develop realistic alternative powered vehicles for new buyers and (2) enable owners of gasoline-powered vehicles to retrofit them to make them as efficient as possible (whether through add-on hybrid methods or simply more efficient gasoline methods). This is reality, regardless of what the dreams are.

[mamacat]

Most American cars of today use direct fuel injection and variable timing. These are wonderful technologies, potentially resulting in much more efficient engines.

Unfortuneately, Detroit chose to use the efficiencies in direct injection and variable timing to make huge SUVs and Monster Pick-up trucks available under existing CAFE standards, instead of increasing overall CAFE standards. We are currently seeing the same trend today from Detroit with their modifying of the technology that Toyota used to make the Prius, "hybrid" technology, to make their larger vehicles acceptable a little longer.

[Coyote2]

This article is typical media junk which misses the point

Eg:
“Turbochargers increase the pressure inside cylinders, cramming more air and allowing combustion to generate more power. This doesn't make the engine more economical in itself...”

Turbochargers RECOVER WASTE HEAT (wasted energy, as 80% of the energy in gasoline is wasted) to increase the pressure inside cylinders.­.....MAKIN­G the engine more economical.

[jsarets]

Somehow, the Atkinson cycle was left out of this article. While the standard Otto cycle four-stroke reciprocating internal combustion engine uses the same ratio for compression and expansion, the Atkinson cycle allows a larger ratio for expansion, resulting in cooler, more fully combusted exhaust gases and therefore greater thermal efficiency at the expense of power. The ICE in the Prius is an Atkinson cycle engine.

There is also a new engine design that provides the asymmetrical compression and expansion ratios in a rotary format instead of reciprocating pistons. Completely unrelated to the Wankel rotary engine used in the Mazda RX-8, which uses an Otto cycle, the asymmetrical rotary engine invented by Libralato Ruggero performs compression and expansion phases in parallel, allowing a four-stroke cycle to complete in one revolution instead of two. The sealing surfaces between the rotors and the stator are much longer than the tiny and unreliable tip seals on the Wankel rotary.

The result is 30% more power and 10% less fuel consumption than a reciprocating Otto cycle engine twice its size and weight. Furthermore, the compressed air scavenge phase fully oxidizes the exhaust gases so that emissions of NOx, CO, and particulates are reduced for the same amount of fuel consumption. The engine can operate on diesel/biodiesel or hydrogen and contains just three moving parts:

http://white-smoke.wetpaint.com/page/Rotary+Engine