direct injection of ethanol in a turbocharged engine

[jorgecar]

Interesting article I found, MIT's doing some research and there might be a bright future for this application...direct injection of ethanol into the cylinders! :shock:

Similar concept and advantages as discussed all over this website, specifically increasing boost wihtout lowering compression and usage of ethanol for increased octane rating and knock avoidance... :wink:

This is taken from www.autoblog.com:


"Hybrid fuel efficiency for one-fifth the cost, and no batteries?
Posted Apr 26th 2006 12:34PM by Stuart Waterman

MIT-based startup Ethanol Boosting Systems has another use for fuel that goes way beyond E85 fuel in terms of reduced emissions and increased fuel efficiency. Best of all, the added cost of the EBS solution is said to be less than $1,000.

EBS uses as-needed direct injection of ethanol in a turbocharged gasoline-fueled engine to boost the overall fuel octane rating to more than 130. The high octane rating allows the engine to use massive levels of turbo boost without lowering the engine's compression. To make a long story short ?lots of power and torque can be produced very efficiently by a small engine, with a 1.5-liter 4 cylinder EBS engine producing roughly the same performance as a 3.0-liter V6, using much less fuel.

A really interesting aspect of the EBS solution is the low quantity of ethanol needed to enable a car with the fuel efficiency of a hybrid - a two- to six-gallon auxiliary ethanol tank would last for two to four months of driving.

Much more info at the EBS site: http://www.ethanolboost.com "

[simple]

Are they talking about FSI type (direct fuel injection) methanol injection? They may as well use 50/50 water mix
This will basically provide WI technology from the factory. All you need to do is to add 50% water to also lover EGT's with the benefitt of factory fine-tuning.

:shock:

[jorgecar]

Originally Posted by simple

Are they talking about FSI type (direct fuel injection) methanol injection?

Yep, same principle but actually it's ethanol direct injection...go to the 'ethanolboost.com' website and you'll find some interesting papers on the subject. Apparently methanol has better in-cylinder cooling effect and injection occurs once all valves are closed, but they mention some toxic issues and of course the fact that ethanol manufacturing infrastructure is more readily available because of E85 fuel and other ethanol/gasoline blends (10% ethanol in some markets I think).

I'm no expert in that matter, just rephrasing what I read. :wink: