Christian von Koenigsegg, founder and CEO of Koenigsegg AB revealed in an interview with Carbuzz that the company is working together with Chinese automaker Qoros to develop a small displacement engine with 400 hp.
“We are currently working on a 1.6 litre engine with Chinese carmaker Qoros that will have the potential to produce 400 hp or more. The same principles with which we designed the Agera and Regera engines can be applied to these smaller engines,” he explained.
Koenigsegg described the development as an engineering exercise to demonstrate that the brand’s technology can be applied to mass market vehicles. It has to be noted, though, that there are no plans to implant the engine into a production vehicle as of yet and it doesn’t necessarily have to produce 400 hp, as it’s intended to be a “proof of concept.”
“By reducing the bore and elongating the stroke of the piston, we are able to lessen the heat losses from the engine. We’ve also used forged pistons, forged connecting rods, and higher quality valves that make engine as efficient as possible. These are more expensive parts, but will not be so much so in mass production,” he said. With the addition of Freevalve tech, efficiency will be further increased by three to four percent.
As for Koenigsegg’s personal view on electric turbochargers that are fast becoming a subject of interest among automakers, he said, “it is interesting in many ways, but a bit clumsy, expensive, and heavy when it can be done in a simpler way.”
According to him, surging the compressor of a turbocharger with a motor will increase backpressure on the engine, which is not very good. In response, Koenigsegg is instead looking to maintain or increase a positive ratio between the intake boost and exhaust backpressure to generate as much heat as possible from combustion and into the turbo.
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400+ bhp 1.6 L engine would be sick…. too bad it is still in the proof of concept stage… will be while before we see it.
That would be 250hp per litre!!!! Possible. <reliability is different issues.
Reducing the bore and increasing the stroke will create a mean piston speed that is too high. This will cause the engine to have a lower RPM limit. I can’t see any advantage in doing that as very high boost is needed at low RPM, which presents turbo sizing issues (finding a turbo that can generate high boost pressure at low engine RPM). There is also the issue of having enough boost pressure at very small throttle openings (like driving in city traffic). This would mean the engine to have most of its power at only a small part of its RPM range, and mostly at full throttle.
Full throttle will result in shortening engine’s lifespan. No point for low cc engine, since petrol is dirth cheap at this moment and I thought our future is reply on renewable energy like solar, hydrogen or electric car?
At small throttle openings how can the turbo spool (spin) and have any boost pressure?? That is what I meant. Only at full throttle does a small 1600cc engine will get the turbo to spool and get anything near the magical 400hp number. At small throttle openings and low RPM that engine will struggle to put out even 50hp, negating the small cc huge hp gimmick.
Turbo lag you mean? 400bhp is the peak horsepower and normally it’s achieved beyond the mid range. If the engine could generate enough torque, i think it is conceivable. Multiple stage turbos, electronic turbos, hybrid drivetrain.. all of these solutions aren’t entirely unheard of. TORQUE TORQUE TORQUE, massive low end torque
Yes, 400hp from a 1.6L main stream engine is a tall order but;
Most new modern engines develop max torque (and pretty much full boost) anywhere from 1800rpm up. You can credit more advanced engine management, DI, VGT, lighter and free spinning turbos.
Long gone are the days when turbochargers don’t wake up until 4000rpm.
The key here is utilizing independently actuated (and possibly infinitely variable) valves WITHOUT a throttle plate. This will be in effect, maximizing the turbo’s efficiency as it doesn’t need to “slow” down as much when the throttle plate is closed. That cool “psssst” CBV sound? well, its going to cost you in fuel and engine response.
We used to tune our cam/valve profiles specifically to match a particular turbo setup to get the required power curves and response from it. Independent valve actuation just makes that so much easier.
Besides, the 400hp is hypothetical. if you are making 400hp, you are using 400hp worth of fuel. They key with these small turbo engines has always been always this; you don’t need to burn 400hp worth of fuel when you don’t need 400hp.
Yes small lightweight variable geometry turbos could have its max boost at low RPM. But these small turbos don’t support high boost pressures to extract 400hp from 1600cc, they are usually only good for power of only around 170-250hp. To get more power usually means going for bigger turbo
Lean spool and turbos the size of a hairdryer will spool that fast, the downside is it will choke in the upper rev range. Lighter wheels and variable geometry help the balancing act but for a 1.6 to hit 400 hp it’s going to have to rev to the sky.
If Citroen can extract over 300bhp from the 1.6 in the WRC DS3 using relatively conventional technology, I’m sure Koenigsegg can do it.
Competition engines like rally or racing is run almost always on full throttle. So no issues of always getting the 300hp. Road car engines are seldom at full throttle. Thats what I meant. To get 400hp from a 1600cc engine would mean a big turbo. And big turbos don’t spin at small throttle openings. Going for complicated setup of sequential small and big turbos only increases the complexity of the engine and would consume a lot of space, negating the small engine size in the 1st place.
Koenigsegg is a hitech motorhead genius. So many mind-boggling innovations on his insane creations. Qoros will benefit greatly from his name-recognition and not to mention his technical wizardry.
it’s possible to build 400bhp 1.6liter turbo.
They might work it out by using super high RPM electric turbine
Wow 400hp+ in a 1600cc! Imagine putting this into Lotus’s lightest chassis…that will be awesome!