GM's answer to Mercedes' Dies-Otto??!

[highwayblaze]

I'd posted a few days earlier about the Mercedes dies-otto technology that Mercedes will showcase in the forthcoming Frankfurt Auto Show. The technology is about incorporating the benefits of a diesel engine in to a gas engine. Well i recently saw a video of GM chief Bob Lutz talking about not going the diesel way since they're coming up with a new technology which is far more efficient. I did a little searching on the web and came up with this.

GM's HCCI a new technology which is similar to what i have read about mercedes dies-otto. It talks about igniting fuel in the combustion chamber under pressure and having spark plugs as stand by for cold weather.

All your comments please

[ananthkamath]

HCCI has been around a long time. Its not GM's invention. In fact I remember reading about the Honda Active Radical combustion chamber a long time ago. They even made a Paris-dakar type motorcycle with a two-stroke active radical engine. This is something similar to that.

BTW interesting comments on Somender Singh's grooving at the end of that article.

[Mpower]

Ananth, the ACR was running a 2 stroke cycle with CI. Never heard of it after the Dakar bike.

HCCI like you said has been in the labs and dynos for quite a while now where it runs at steady state but so far nothing on the road yet. Typically there are no plugs in HCCI because of the CI, but I guess GM is trying something different.

[highwayblaze]

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

HCCI has been around a long time. ...
BTW interesting comments on Somender Singh's grooving at the end of that article.

Interesting I completely missed those. Good to know fact though.

Originally Posted by Mpower

HCCI like you said has been in the labs and dynos

So will this really be applied. I heard they're running it on experimental saturn aura's.

[sujaylahiri]

Our University, University of Windsor has an HCCI research team which is funded by GM. I knew one of the research/graduate assistants who was working on that. In one of our 3rd year courses, we actually had a class dedicated to it. The setup is huge, and they are using a modified 3 cylinder Indirect Injection GM diesel engine (He told me that the 4th cylinder was disabled, can't remember why though). Since it was a test setup, they said it took them almost 2 hours to start it up (adjusting the sensors, air/fuel ratio etc.) and it's also one of the major drawbacks of the engine. Otherwise, if they can get it right, it'll be a very efficient engine.