Ford testing ethanol injection with Ecoboost
I thought you may be interested in this from Ford. To me, it is a modern incarnation of an older idea. Back in the Fifties and Sixties, a few hotrodders used “water injection” to accomplish the same thing, namely cooling the combustion chamber to combat detonation, thus allowing higher compression. Ford is using ethanol instead of water, accomplishing the same thing but getting heat from the combustion of the ethanol instead of absorbing heat from the vaporization of the water. I also found it fascinating that they are using direct injection instead of port injection. With a few exceptions, direct injection has heretofore been the sole province of diesels. Go to http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10030963-48.html to read the full article.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
We haven’t been too excited about Ford’s Ecoboost tech, simply because it’s not really new tech. However, Ford’s next evolution of Ecoboost, code-named Bobcat, might be worth getting worked up about.
According to sources at PickupTrucks.com, the Bobcat is essentially a turbocharged engine running at a high compression ratio. Typically, this combination results in disaster, but Ford’s system has a trick up its sleeve in the form of ethanol injection.
The Bobcat builds on Ford’s Ecoboost engines by including a direct injected ethanol nozzle that adds small amounts of ethanol to the standard port injected air/fuel mixture. The ethanol cools the combustion chamber to prevent premature detonation, allowing the turbocharged engine to run extreme compression ratios.
The system promises 5 to 10 percent greater fuel economy than EcoBoost engines, which already promise a 20 percent increase over Ford’s traditional engines. Turbodiesel enthusiasts already know that high compression plus a turbo equals gobs of torque, which is why the Bobcat is speculated to be a potential replacement for the large diesel power plants that power Ford’s heavy- and super-duty trucks. A 5.0-liter turbo V-8 with ethanol boost could be rated at 500 horsepower and 700 foot-pounds of torque.
With the system’s lower entry cost combined with gasoline’s consistently lower cost per gallon, this system could be a viable alternative to diesel engines in the big trucks of the future.
Ford’s Bobcat engine includes standard port injected gasoline supplemented by ethanol direct injection.
(Credit: PickupTrucks.com )
Tags: Direct Injection, Ecoboost, Ethanol, Ford, High Compression
September 4th, 2008 at 10:35 am
A friend of mine just emailed me one of your articles from a while back. I read that one a few more. Really enjoy your blog. Thanks
September 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I suppose the cooling effect of the Ethanol is simply to cool the gasses that are in the chamber before they are compressed, giving a few degrees of difference due to the Ethanol injection.
I can’t imagine that it would cool down the cylinder walls very much or keep the engine cooler, but that leads me to the idea …. why not simply cool the engine block more using radiators or actual compressors / coolers?
September 7th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Dan:
You bring up a point that has confounded engine designers for years. It is a well established fact that higher engine temperatures result in a more efficient engine. That’s why years ago pressurized coolant systems were introduced. Some think it was to prevent the loss of coolant, but that was a side effect, as it were. The primary reason was to raise the coolant temperature and thus the combustion chamber temperature and thus the efficiency of the engine. But along with higher temperatures came preignition and detonation, or “ping,” requiring the higher octane gasolines of 40 years ago. At one time, Sunoco offered 99 octane gasoline in its famous blender pumps where you could choose multiple octane ratings. Then the ‘73 and ‘79 oil crises, the EPA, CAFE standards, fuel economy standards, et.al, came along. Engine designers were faced with the necessity to design high temperature, high efficiency engines that didn’t “ping,” didn’t pollute, and got high fuel mileage. This ethanol injection idea is an outgrowth of that. The idea being to cool and quench the surfaces of the combustion chamber below the ignition temperature of gasoline to prevent “ping.”