dr_mat 0 Posted September 15, 2003 Yay, 100 posts!!! :) Clearly I have too much time on my hands.. 100 posts since July. And I was on holiday for 3 weeks in August!! If you work for my employer, SHUSH! Ok!?? ;) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kevin Bacon 5 Posted September 15, 2003 Yay, 100 posts!!! :) Clearly I have too much time on my hands.. 100 posts since July. And I was on holiday for 3 weeks in August!! If you work for my employer, SHUSH! Ok!?? ;) He he, I'm working toward my 1000th! I wasn't sure what they meant about the plastic inlet manifold but sounds like Joe knows what they were talking about. Plastic engines are not new. Ford made a plastic engine in the 80s but plastic technology back then wasn't what it is now, so the project was canned. BASF also invented plastic batteries so that a rear spoiler or bumper would be the car's main battery, saving weight etc etc but that was another flash in the pan! The next big things engine wise are 24V electrics, direct injection petrol and cam-less cylinder heads. Renault made a camless engine which had no external pulleys. The alternator/starter motor was basically the flywheel, the PAS was pressurised with electric motors and the water pump was also electric. It was just a small metal box! Computer controlled solenoids replaced the cam. Very trick! This was a few years ago so dunno how they're getting on with it. Kev Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henny 0 Posted September 15, 2003 [ Renault made a camless engine which had no external pulleys. The alternator/starter motor was basically the flywheel, the PAS was pressurised with electric motors and the water pump was also electric. It was just a small metal box! Computer controlled solenoids replaced the cam. Very trick! This was a few years ago so dunno how they're getting on with it. A guy I did my Uni course with was looking into this kind of camless engine... Apparently it's quite successful but is still more expensive to make..... Oh, and it REALLY doesn't like mobile phones too close to it... :? :shock: Valves meeting pistons time when someone phones you, not the best safety feature I can think of... :roll: :lol: The other big idea that's been floating around for AGES is to use the starter motor as the alternator... That way you only need one big, heavy, copper-coiled, motor type thing in the engine bay (technical term there, did you notice? :lol: ) It's pretty easy to do in theory, but the practicalities are proving difficult... :? The french motor manufacturers seem to be about the only people mad enough to try these weird and wacky ideas... They're about the only people working on the car "DIGITAL BUS" wiring system... 3 wires in the whole car in a ring that goes to every single piece of equipment... +VE, -VE and DATA... :? Each electrical item has a circuit associated with it with an "address" and the DATA wire has enough signal bandwidth on it to tell evey component on the car what it should be doing... The idea is that circuits are cheap and light, but Copper cable with different coloured (unless it's a peugeot with all red wires! :roll: ) insulation is expensive and heavy. A 3 wire "BUS" curcuit around the car is way cheaper to do than a loom of 200 or 300 individual wires... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kevin Bacon 5 Posted September 15, 2003 Sounds similar to a computer keyboard bus. Numerous possible keystrokes down a few wires. Some French ideas seem a little wacky initially but you then realise they actually make sense. They are among the finest engineers in the world and they certainly know a thing or two about suspension. The thinking behind their engines is to make them smaller, more powerful, simpler and lighter so that they can concentrate on the interior and bodyshell more, meaning they can build an engine into the car rather than building a car around the engine. VW did exactly the same thing with the VR engine, which then went on to spawn W configuration engines. The W18 was canned as it was too complicated but the W8 and W12 remain. They're also heavily into twin scroll turbos which are a vast improvement over normal ones. Basically, exhaust oulets 1 and 4 flow into one turbo port and cyls 2 & 3 flow into the other. This gets round the inherent problem of turbo engines ingesting their own exhaust gases. Solve that and you can crank up the ignition advance a lot more, giving more torque and erradicating lag. Clever stuff. Kev Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
