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.
hope it works out better for Mazda owners than the Wankel engine.
Are you a self proclaimed Christian? This is an important question...
The ones that do aren't made out of aluminum or lightweight steel.
Was watching a British series, Wartime Farm. They had a tractor that started by using a blank 12 gauge shot shell and, I think, some burning straw.
Cylinder Deactivation – A Cost-effective Solution for Better Fuel Economy
The wankel has come a long way since those days. I’ve raced a 20b (3rotor) sandrail and a 13b (2rotor) 3rd gen RX-7 for the last 14 years. Those days of breaking apex seals are long gone and turbo technology is far superior bringing lag to almost nothing. Rotaries just need the right tune and can last for at least 100k.
I had a 1974 RX-4 Mazda wankel station wagon.
Loved it! Very smooth and fast.
” Reminds of the V8/6/4 idea Cadillac offered BRIEFLY.”
It was only intended to be offered one year.
That was 1981. Now is now and the concept is working fine.
Anything like the wankel engine?
Piston engine goes Ping, ping ping,
But the Mazda goes H-m-m-m-m.
Thank you.
hydrogen cars are total losers economically and energy efficiency:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle
“As of 2014, 95% of hydrogen is made from natural gas. It can be produced using renewable sources, but that is an expensive process.[3] Integrated wind-to-hydrogen (power to gas) plants, using electrolysis of water, are exploring technologies to deliver costs low enough, and quantities great enough, to compete with hydrogen production using natural gas.[4] The drawbacks of hydrogen use are high carbon emissions intensity when produced from natural gas, capital cost burden, low energy content per unit volume, production and compression of hydrogen, and the large investment in infrastructure that would be required to fuel vehicles.”
I’ll be interested to see if this really makes it to market and how it does. Mazda is one of the best at putting the power to the road. The rotary engine may have flopped commercially, but it would not surprise me at all if Mazda made this work.
“so the business model must work”
only works because of gov subsidies and stupid states like California paying 3 times per kilowatt what other electricity costs so they can pretend like they are “green”.
get rid of gov subsidies and gov mandates and the whole wind nonsense collapses.
Wankels were a good concept except they could not endure high heat conditions. The side plates would warp and the vanes would scatter. I towed about most of these to my yard and crushed them at the request of insurance companies at the time. Corvairs and Wankels all stopped here. It was the end of the line due to the heat and the faulty engineering.
That has all changed since the old days. With the right radiator, intercooler and proper ECU that adjusts to water and air intake temperatures, that doesn’t happen anymore.
Yes.
One of the most entertaining engines I ever wrung out was in a friend’s ‘71 or ‘72 Mazda RX2 coupe. It was a two rotor Wankel rated at a hundred or so horses and had a redline of 6,500 and when the tach hit that mark, a loud buzzer would go off telling the driver to back off. My friend told me to ignore it and just drive it so I did. In the first three of four gears, I would that sucker to over 8,500 and it would produce a kick-ass boost right after the redline all the way past eight grand. I had a ‘71 BMW 2002 that was slightly warmed up and would take her to seven grand but the Wankel was like a little motor from another planet.
I always liked the design and the RPM factor. But they just couldn’t take 130 degree ambient temps and a “kill hill”. :)
What would you consider a kill hill? I ran several hill climbs racking it up to 8000 and it kept on going. There are several secrets to keep them running like old 40’s tech (meth/water) ;)
Dad had an International TD 14a that did that also.
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