Posted on 08/09/2017 2:45:14 PM PDT by Red Badger
A new car engine will eventually come on the scene. This week's car watching sites have reacted to Tuesday's announcement from Mazda with interest. At a time when the total focus appears to be on electric cars as our driving future, Mazda is ushering in a type of car engine that they call Skyactiv-X.
The Hiroshima, Japan-datelined Tuesday announcement from Mazda said it is introducing the world's "first commercial gasoline engine to use compression ignition."
Reuters quoted what Mazda R&D head Kiyoshi Fujiwara told reporters. "We think it is an imperative and fundamental job for us to pursue the ideal internal combustion engine." He said, yes, electrification was necessary but "the internal combustion engine should come first."
Mazda's company release elaborated that this was a commercial gasoline engine using compression ignition, where the fuel-air mixture ignites spontaneously when compressed by the piston.
Mazda's combustion method is tagged Spark Controlled Compression Ignition.
Jalopnik said "Mazda's powertrain team has brewed up a fancy new engine that, like a diesel, uses compression to activate the combustion process." David Tracy in Jalopnik explored what their Spark Controlled Compression Ignition is all about. Tracy said, "it's a homogenous charge compression ignition engine sometimes, but it seamlessly changes over to a regular spark-ignition engine under certain engine operating conditions.
The Mazda release said the method overcomes two issues that impeded commercialization of compression ignition gasoline engines: "maximizing the zone in which compression ignition is possible and achieving a seamless transition between compression ignition and spark ignition."
The company said that compression ignition enabled "a super lean burn" (condition in which the ratio of gasoline to air is reduced to a level that would not ignite in a spark-ignition engine) that improved engine efficiency up to 20 to 30 percent over the current Skyactiv-G.
Autoweek's Jay Ramey similarly said reliable operation of these engines had eluded automakers until now.
Ramey wrote that "A homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) gasoline engine has been something of a holy grail for internal combustion engineers for decades."
Interestingly, Mazda's design will use spark plugs to achieve ignition under conditions such as low temperatures. CNET's Andrew Krok: "The engine will function like a traditional gas engine at low revs, using spark plugs to ignite the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. At higher revs, though, the plugs will deactivate and the gas will ignite under piston compression alone."
Top Gear's Craig Jamieson also commented that "developing plugs that can sit idle, then work, for instance, is a massive engineering challenge on its own."
Reports said that the new engine 'SkyActiv-X' will debut in 2019.
I hope it smells like a cox 049
If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL KnOcK LIST just FReepmail me..... This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....
Does this mean gas mileage goes up 20-30%?
That brings back childhood memories!.....................
New engine design aside, I am not trading my good ole’ piston powered German and American muscle for something new.
“Missile Mist”
Not necessarily, EFFICIENCY: improved engine efficiency up to 20 to 30 percent....................
Gee, when I was a kid, dad had an old DC Case tractor that we would start on gasoline and after she warmed up we would switch it over to kerosene for work in the field, then switch it back to gasoline before shutdown. This was an old crank tractor with a magneto.
What are the compression ratios? 25:1? I wouldn’t expect the engine to hold up as long as a spark engine under the pressures required, whatever they are.
Interesting........never heard of such a machine..............
imho the 2020’s are going to be another golden age of automobiles like the 1950’s and 1960’s. Why? There are going to be two kinds of cars; electric and internal combustion engine cars. With maybe a third hydrogen powered cars coming in later. the competition between the systems will force down prices broadly while increasing fuel efficiency. The quality of the workmanship will necessarily increase—because of competition— so the working lives of the cars will go over 200k. (Remember electric cars may currently have bugs but when the bugs are got out—their fewer parts will mean much less maintenance. Internal combustion cars will have to get better to compete. Plus the tools available to turn style ideas into working models will just be astounding. They’re already amazing.
Not necessarily true. Diesel engines can and do run for multi hundred-thousands of miles.
So it’s NOT a gasoline engine using compression ignition. It only does that part of the time!
Gasoline is very volatile. It should be interesting to see how this works.
Im sure you had that prop cut finger and recall the sting of cox fuel getting in it
Wonder what the compression ratio is....?
Now, THAT is a great memory....an .020, even better...
Heavy truck diesels can run for over a million miles. Of course, those engines weigh as much or more than the average car.
I though the problem was always that gasoline only burns as a vapor, but under high compression it always liquefies.
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