Ilmor 700cc five-stroke petrol turbo engine
A new advanced engine is being developed by Ilmor Engineering, a company once part-owned by Mercedes-Benz while it supplied the Germans with their F1 powerplants. The new initiative is a three-cylinder, 700cc (0.7-litre) five-stroke turbocharged petrol that Ilmor says is at least 5% more efficient than an equivalent direct injection engine. This is despite it having a multipoint injection system.
Ilmor is currently getting 97kW (130bhp) and 165Nm (122lb-ft) of torque out of it. New developments are being planned to cylinder capacity, valvegear design, turbo selection, and ancillaries. These should increase power to 112kW (150bhp) and return a weight saving of 20%. The prototype is thus exhibiting performance and torque characteristics of a small diesel engine but without the related C02 emissions.
Steve O'Connor, Ilmor's engineering manager says this is just the beginning. He states that plenty of refinements to this concept are under way and they will see even more improvements to all the aforementioned figures.
OEM customers are being sought to partner with the company for manufacturing purposes. The best application for this motor seems to be in the hybrid arena so automakers with hybrid plans can expect a call from O'Connor and his colleagues, if they have not received one yet.
Source: autocar.co.uk
Press Release (Click to expand)
Ilmor plan future developments for 5-stroke engine
Northampton, UK - With its first prototype Five-Stroke having achieved an impressive fuel consumption figure of 226g/kWh, engine designer and manufacturer Ilmor Engineering is planning a second phase development engine for real-world in-vehicle testing. Ilmor is keen to find a development partner to bring this exciting concept a step closer to production, and to this end is currently in discussion with automotive OEMs and Tier One suppliers, who are showing considerable interest.
Targets for the new engine, which could be suitable for installation for either hybrid or conventional installation, are a Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) of better than 215 g/kWh, a 20% reduction in weight over existing production engines of a similar output, and a power density of 150bhp/L. Following testing on Ilmor's dynamometers and detailed analysis of the first prototype powerplant, developments are planned to cylinder capacity, valvegear design, turbo selection, and ancillaries to achieve these figures. No modifications are planned which would require any unconventional or new manufacturing processes, its simplicity and reliance on tried and tested technology being one of the key benefits of the Five-Stroke engine.
The five-stroke concept
The patented 5-stroke concept utilises two fired cylinders operating on a conventional 4-stroke cycle, which alternately exhaust into a central expansion cylinder, whereupon the burnt gases perform further work. The additional low pressure expansion cylinder decouples the expansion and compression processes, and enables the optimum expansion ratio to be selected independently of the compression ratio.
The engine concept, which was invented by Gerhard Schmitz, has been developed by Ilmor into a working engine using a rapid prototype cast cylinder head, a machined from solid cylinder block and separate electrically powered oil and water pumps. Two overhead camshafts operate the conventional coil spring valvegear with the HP camshaft running at 0.5 x crank speed and the LP camshaft running at 1 x crank speed. The engine is turbocharged to 3 bar abs.
About Ilmor Engineering
manufacturing specialist Ilmor Engineering is world renowned for its multiple successes in Indycar and F1 racing. Motorsport still forms an important part of Ilmor's business - including through Honda supplying the engines for the entire Indycar grid - but today the company also has projects in the OEM automotive, defence (UAV), aerospace, and marine industries. Ilmor offers design services from individual components to whole engine, development of existing engines, dynamometer/emissions testing, and multi-axis machining.
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James2911
August 12, 2009 4:51 PM
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