Archive for Technology

As we all know, the combustion engine does not really convert the potential energy in fuel to kinetic energy to move the car efficiently. We lose alot of that power – roughly 76% – in the form of heat. BMW has tried to salvage some of this lost energy with their TurboSteamer system which harnesses heat from the exhaust flow and uses steam to power an expansion unit connected to the crankshaft.

Someone in the engine business has another idea. Bruce Crower, the owner of Crower Cams and Equipment Company builds camshafts, crankshafts and connecting rods, including titanium rods for Formula 1 customers. He lets his company run itself while doing intensive R&D work in his 13-acre backyard in Jamul.

And his idea is a 6-stroke engine. He calls it the Crower cycle engine.

Click here to read the rest of Bruce Crower’s 6 stroke Crower cycle engine

This is for those who appreciate the technology that goes into a powertrain. How does the new 1.8 liter SOHC i-VTEC engine in the new 2006 Honda Civic achieve good fuel mileage (Honda claims 1.5 liter fuel economy during cruising) while producing a respectable 140 horsepower and 174 Nm of torque? Let’s have a look at some of the technologies that went into this new engine – the R18A1.

Click here to read the rest of 2006 Honda Civic 1.8 SOHC i-VTEC engine

A group of students from the West Philadelphia High School’s Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering have come up with a prototype hybrid car that runs on soybean fuel. And it’s a sports car, which delivers more horsepower than entry-level Porsches, but yet gets mileage similiar to the Toyota Prius. How on earth?

Click here to read the rest of Students build hybrid sportscar powered by soybeans

Nice video on BMW’s prototype Auto Park system. The narration is in German though, so I don’t really have any idea what they are going on about. But it’s pretty cool watching the 5-series station wagon being parked automatically. Video is after the jump. Also, check out Volvo’s Self Park System developed in collaboration with a Swedish university.

Click here to read the rest of BMW Auto Park

The Project NEF engine aims to produce a high performance prototype engine without the need to resort to exotic materials or manufacturing technology, ensuring the transition from prototype to production with ease and speed. It was designed and developed by Lotus Engineering’s powertrain division.

The first in the engine family is the 3.0 liter supercharged DOHC 75 degree V6 engine found in the new Lotus APX prototype. The supercharged 3.0 liter V6 makes 300hp at 6250rpm and 360Nm of torque at 4500rpm. 80% of that 360Nm of torque (288Nm) is available from as low as 1500rpm. Acceleration should be very good. Pretty impressive stuff.

Other family models include a 2.2 liter and 3.0 liter normally aspirated versions, which compliment this supercharged one. They are all production feasible, but not planned for production, unless of course there is a customer who wants to buy it. Perhaps Proton would be one of the potential customers? Makes sense seriously.

The narrow 75 degree angle makes the engine compact. It also gives the engine better vibration characteristics, removing the need for a balance shaft and the extra cost and weight that comes with it. The engine is controlled by a 32-bit ECU capable of 200 million calculations a second.

Mercedes Benz was the first car manufacturer to use direct fuel-injection in it’s road cars, putting a direct-injection engine into the 1955 300SL Gullwing. Back then, things like fuel economy and emissions were not really an issue, but it is today. So car manufacturers everywhere are taking a look at gasoline direct injection to improve fuel efficiency and emissions.

Click here to read the rest of Mercedes Benz Charged Gasoline Injection (CGI)

When it comes to souping up cars, even laymen usually have two words in their heads – turbo and NOS. NOS, or its proper name nitrous oxide. Sounds cool doesnt it?

Contrary to popular believe, NOS isnt the chemical acronym for nitrous oxide. It is actually the acronym for Nitrous Oxide Systems, the largest manufacturer of automotive nitrous oxide injection systems out there. Its become so synonymous with the gas, like how Maggi is associated with instant noodles, Colgate is associated with toothpaste, or Nescafe with instant coffee, or how making a photocopy of something is called Xerox-ing. Nitrous oxides chemical designator is actually N2O, because it has 2 nitrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom.

Lets find out more about nitrous oxide injection systems.

Click here to read the rest of How does Nitrous Oxide work?

The car dashboard. You will spend most of your time as a car owner facing it. Many car companies have been trying to revolutionize the way dashboard information is presented to you. Honda has it’s split deck design with 2 levels of meters. Some companies position the dashboard meter cluster in the middle like the Toyota VIOS, Nissan X-Trail and even our Perodua Kancil.

I kind of like Citroen’s approach with the Citroen C6’s dashboard. Nice and compact display shows indicators, RPM, speed, gear shift position and fuel level in digital form, and speed is projected on the windscreen via a heads-up display.

After testing their new turbocharged petrol engine on a modified BMW 5-series, BMW has officially announced their new turbocharged petrol engine, the N54 Bi-Turbo.

The BMW N54 Bi-Turbo is expected to be installed for the first time ever in the 2007 BMW 335i E90 sedan and the 2007 BMW 335ci E92 coupe. It uses 2 turbochargers, fed by 3 cylinders each in parallel arrangement to reduce turbo lag. The new cars that carry this engine will have the 335 insignia, which represents the 3.0 liter N54’s engine power equivalance to a 3.5 liter normally aspirated engine.

Performance stats are quoted to be 306hp and 400Nm of torque. Previous horsepower stimated figure was 330hp. As a comparison, the 3.0 liter normally aspirated inline-6 engine in the 330i makes around 260 horsepower. Also, the new N54 Bi-Turbo engine is 70kg lighter than BMW’s 4.0 liter V8 engine.

Related Post:
BMW 335i to get twin-turbocharged inline-6

Here are somemore details on the upcoming new Audi R8 supercar, based on the Le Mans concept above. A quick recap, the car is supposed to come in 2 variants, one with an entry-level high-revving 4.2 V8 making 415hp and 430Nm of torque. The top of the line version features a 5 liter V10 from the Lamborghini Gallardo twin-turbocharged to make 610hp and 745Nm of torque.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Audi R8 Technical Specifications