New Toyota engine...

For the toyota fans out there- this is a fairly old site explaining the motor, but this engine is freaking out a whole lot of people....

http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/powertrain/engine/

Especially now that the certification data is coming out.

http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/powertrain/engine/

Thats a lot of thought provoking innovation. But, after watching the video...good lord will any kind of head work be a serious PITFA!!!

In reply to Robbie:

Shoot, forgot that link detail. Thanks.

Cool. I wonder how this will stack up against Mazdas recent announcement of the HCCI breakthrough.

5% better peak thermal efficiency is an impressive gain.

To my layman eyes, it looks significantly like what Mazda did with the skyactiv cylinder heads.. Look at the short turn valve undercut in this 2011 MotoIQ Article:

Even the direct injector angle looks fairly similar, although I'd expect any DI engine to look something like this.

What am I missing?

I wonder if this could be combined with HCCI for even greater gains.

The variable oil pump is an interesting idea, after having to look at how they work in detail recently i've realized that the traditional oil pump is a hilariously wasteful system, although it only uses a small fraction of the engine's power. I wonder which manufacturer will be the first to sell a car with an electric oil pump though. It would be mechanically quite simple and the engine could have full oil pressure on every start, and since H-patterns are being phased out, everything needed for a oil pressure safety system would already be in place.

The0retical wrote: Cool. I wonder how this will stack up against Mazdas recent announcement of the HCCI breakthrough. 5% better peak thermal efficiency is an impressive gain.

Off the top of my head, the most important thing is that the toyota engine will be a LOT cheaper. It's all very conventional. The "highest" tech item (read expensive) is the DI.

WonkoTheSane wrote: Even the direct injector angle looks fairly similar, although I'd expect any DI engine to look something like this. What am I missing?

FWIW, DI can be either side or central (spray down from the spark plug area). Both work pretty well.

alfadriver wrote:

WonkoTheSane wrote: Even the direct injector angle looks fairly similar, although I'd expect any DI engine to look something like this. What am I missing?

FWIW, DI can be either side or central (spray down from the spark plug area). Both work pretty well.

Hmm, interesting. I didn't think anyone was doing the central spray with gassers.. I thought that was a diesel thing. To be fair, I never really looked into it

In reply to WonkoTheSane:

We've got a couple of them- mostly i4's.

60kw per liter is pretty good. That's 200hp from a 2.5L. NA mind you, no turbo. Although my 2.0 puts out 150hp, and the 2.5L version of my engine makes 170.

So the big change is the angle of the valves? That seems like something everyone has played with to death, I thought we'd already figured this out. Doesn't the old-school small block come from the aftermarket with tons of different angles already?

Maybe I am missing something, but this just looks like a bunch of (cool, and neat) incremental gains, but nothing shattering.

On the other hand, I am really super interested to hear about real world testing of Mazda's new HCCI.

Now the 64$ question is "will it swap into my frisbee?"

One thing, is that 40% efficiency a real thing? That's really very impressive. I thought we were still in the mid 30s.

Our big engines are right at 41.5% simple cycle, and I expected the Brayton cycle to be more efficient, even on natural gas, especially as big as our engines are.

Of course our 'hybrids' are combined cycle, and over 60%, but it's somewhat impractical to have a steam engine in your car hooked to your exhaust.

tuna55 wrote: One thing, is that 40% efficiency a real thing? That's really very impressive. I thought we were still in the mid 30s.

That, and it's cycle fuel economy IS the shattering part. Moreso that it's a very straight forward and conventional design that is just a bunch of details vs. a bunch of technology.

I think it's a very big deal. Big enough to shift what I am personally working on. I doubt that will happen, but it should.

alfadriver wrote:

tuna55 wrote: One thing, is that 40% efficiency a real thing? That's really very impressive. I thought we were still in the mid 30s.

That, and it's cycle fuel economy IS the shattering part. Moreso that it's a very straight forward and conventional design that is just a bunch of details vs. a bunch of technology. I think it's a very big deal. Big enough to shift what I am personally working on. I doubt that will happen, but it should.

So I just naturally assumed that all of the stuff showed on that page was already being worked on by every automaker who builds their own engines. Bad assumption!

tuna55 wrote: One thing, is that 40% efficiency a real thing? That's really very impressive. I thought we were still in the mid 30s.

Yep, the best modern production car engines are in the mid-30s, a current F1 engine is at 45%.

Interesting. Glad to see innovation like this.

GameboyRMH wrote:

tuna55 wrote: One thing, is that 40% efficiency a real thing? That's really very impressive. I thought we were still in the mid 30s.

Yep, the best modern production car engines are in the mid-30s, a current F1 engine is at 45%.

While the 40% looks really cool, it's actually very useless. It's in a very isolated part of the operating map- one of those less than 1% of the lifetime of the engine.

BUT. What is really amazing, the rest of the BSFC map is pretty darned flat. Especially where it matters- where we all drive. It's really frustrating to tell people that their really awesome design is cool, but very useless.

4cylndrfury wrote: Thats a lot of thought provoking innovation. But, after watching the video...good lord will any kind of head work be a serious PITFA!!!

Why? The basic layout looks pretty conventional to my eyes.

Interesting intake ports. There was a thread on Speedtalk last year-ish about some Renault heads that a similar "negative" short side radius that appeared designed to discourage flow anywhere but out the far side of the valve.

Of course, I also remember on a porting/chamber development forum that has disappeared (sadly) discussion about the Ford Duratec four engines, which were new at the time, and their apparent lack of an SSR. One of the main guru guys said it reminded him of the 4v Mod heads, and the ports weren't really meant to flow through the whole valve but dump out the far side of the valve only, so conventional porting tactics didn't really do what you wanted to do, you just had to roll with the theory behind the original design when biasing port flow. And Ford probably wasn't the first to do that kind of "dump port" either.

I'm a little surprised that they are touting in-cylinder tumble. I thought tumble was deemed crude (that's what Chevy worked on with the LT1 heads in the early 90s) and swirl worked better at getting quick clean combustion. That was when DI was a pipe dream, so maybe tumble is good again with direct injection?

alfadriver wrote: BUT. What is really amazing, the rest of the BSFC map is pretty darned flat. Especially where it matters- where we all drive. It's really frustrating to tell people that their really awesome design is cool, but very useless.

Question, kind of a philosophical one more than anything. With CVTs and zillion speed transmissions and series hybrids and parallel hybrids with really great transmissions... why does an engine need a broad BSFC curve anymore?

Heck, I remember Audi is/was playing with Wankels again as an under trunk mounted power generation unit for a series hybrid, because with that setup you never need the engine to run at idle or low load where a Wankel has hideously bad efficiency and emissions (despite all of Mazda's best efforts). But if you make it small enough that you can run it near full load all the time when needed, the efficiency can be downright shocking.

In reply to Knurled:

Good question, but even with a perfect CVT, at a best option, the actual engine power requirement is from still very broad. Even on the FTP cycle, the output requirement is reasonably broad. Letting the engine go between 1500-2100 rpm is good, too.

The only time that we would ever not want a broad BSFC map is for a constant speed and constant power generator for a very interesting hybrid (where the engine is not even close to driving the wheels).

Most engines are best at about 80% output in the 2000rpm range. But that's way too much to use in real life.

In reply to alfadriver:

Kind of depends. I think my Volvo lives at about 4-5 pounds of boost and 2000-2500rpm under any kind of acceleration. That's about 80% output. It builds boost instantly and just leans on the torque converter, pushing the pedal down more just makes the trans kick down. Very linear and insta-torque feeling to drive. (Interestingly, the "engine load" PID on my scantool never goes above 100 - at 9psi boost it goes up to about 93-95% but that's it. I shudder to think what the exhaust manifold pressures are if airmass/cycle never gets over 100% with that much boost!)

But I know what you mean.

But even if this were groundbreaking, which it's not, Toyota would find a way to make it boring.