It's not often a design comes along and truly thinks outside of the box. What would you say to a GM developed, 4.5L V8 turbo diesel putting down 310 horsepower and 520 lb.ft. of torque in the footprint of a small block 350? What if we told you that same engine has common rail injection, a variable geometry turbo, no intake manifolds, and the exhaust ports on the valley side? Crazy! Yes - crazy good.
How can you not be utterly blown away with the brilliance of pushing charged air directly into the valve covers and skipping the lower intake manifold baloney? And come on, piping the exhaust gas directly to the center to meet up with the turbo makes us question other engine designers. To top it off, this is just the stuff we know about, GM is sitting on other details until the patents are through. We're taking this standout engine design as a sign of awesome diesely goodness to come. Say it together now - 2010 Pontiac G8 Ute turbo diesel.
I always wanted to take an Olds V-8 diesel and convert it to run on some form of expanding gas like a freon. Use the properties of the gas expanding when released under pressure to push the piston down. Because it wouldn`t rely on compression, you could remove the intake valves, open the exhaust on every up stroke and 'fire' the cylinder every revolution instead of every other revolution. On the exhaust side, recapture the gas, contain it in a holding tank till the injection pump re-compresses it and shoots it into the cylinder at TDC. Throttle would be controled by the amount of freon injected by the pump much like how the diesel does now. recapturing the freon, it would never need fuel. Just an idea I`ve been kicking around for a decade or two.
I'm thinking that stuff like this will be the solution to the 35 mpg mandate. It looks like there will still be performance motors available.
A 310 hp truck powered by this isn't too bad an idea either. It's not quite the 380 hp the 5.7 l Hemi dodge has, but if you give me a choice between a 310hp pickup that gets a real 18 city and 25 highway and a 380hp Hemi that gets 14city and 19 highway, I'm getting the diesel. Add in the torque and I'm out towing the Hemi while I'm at it.
Put that in a G8 sedan and you now have a 30 mpg plus highway vehicle that can run on Bio-diesel. and still get mid 14's in the 1/4 mile. Not bad.
Where I really think this motor is going to shine is in a vehicle like a Trailblazer. That motor gives it enough torque to tow just about anything you need to. The hp makes the acceleration quick enough that no one wants a 5.3l gas and the fuel mileage makes the V6 obsolete. If you design and build a vehicle around and with only one engine choice, there is considerable savings in developement.
I've been waiting patiently for diesels to enter the mainstream in this country like they have in Europe. Wow, I never expected GM to be the one to come up with something like this. I didn't think any US manufacturer even knew how to spell diesel.
That appears to be truly innovative. If the basic design can be scaled up and down, there are lots of homes for a power plant like that. Any people mover would benefit from the torque and fuel efficiency. Also light trucks as already mentioned. Even large sedans would make a good home.
A national energy program doesn't need to depend solely on whiz bang technology that hasn't been invented yet. While we wait for hydrogen fuel cells and polymer lithium ion batteries that don't cost as much as a house, hybrids and diesels can do a lot to reduce consumption.
I do almost 1/2 my driving in Europe and love their diesels. This engine is too big for a G8. A V6 would be plenty big. In Europe, they now have 2.0L 4-cyl diesels that but out 325 lb-ft of torque, that is almost as much as our GTOs. The diesel engines are starting to outperform their high compression gas counterparts. I had one in December - with four adults and luggage, we got 43 mpg at 85 mph in a C-class sedan with an automatic! Any more torque and it would have been a hot rod!
I do almost 1/2 my driving in Europe and love their diesels. This engine is too big for a G8. A V6 would be plenty big. In Europe, they now have 2.0L 4-cyl diesels that but out 325 lb-ft of torque, that is almost as much as our GTOs. The diesel engines are starting to outperform their high compression gas counterparts. I had one in December - with four adults and luggage, we got 43 mpg at 85 mph in a C-class sedan with an automatic! Any more torque and it would have been a hot rod!
Unfortunately our EPA here thinks that diesels are bad for us. It takes so much technology to make a diesel clean that the cost is raised an extra $2000 over the cost of a diesel already. Is it worth spending 17,000 for a Volkswagen Rabbit that gets decent highway mileage? Well how about a Rabbit that gets 45 mpg hwy but costs 22,000. Very few will save 5,000 over the life of the vehicle, especially when you factor in the extra cost of diesel fuel. Volkswagen figured that out and has killed the Diesel program for the US.
Unfortunately our EPA here thinks that diesels are bad for us. It takes so much technology to make a diesel clean that the cost is raised an extra $2000 over the cost of a diesel already. Is it worth spending 17,000 for a Volkswagen Rabbit that gets decent highway mileage? Well how about a Rabbit that gets 45 mpg hwy but costs 22,000. Very few will save 5,000 over the life of the vehicle, especially when you factor in the extra cost of diesel fuel. Volkswagen figured that out and has killed the Diesel program for the US.
Nah, not true. There are some pretty cheap Renaults being sold in France with a nice little diesel powerplant running on low sulfur fuel. They're quiet, torquey, don't smell, and don't smoke. And if you check prices, there's typically less than a 500 Euro difference between the gas and diesel versions of cars like the Megane Sport Hatch. Just to make sure the frogs weren't subsidizing the hell out of the diesel, I checked prices in the UK since the Megane is sold there too. Same difference in cost. A few hundred pounds sterling for the diesel vs a gas engine in the same trim level. I love the Megane. Cool car.
It's a viable technology and it's available now except for the refining capacity here in the US. That's the only thing that keeps diesel fuel expensive here. We could have the refining capacity in place long before lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells.
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Pontiac G8ST with a 4.5L Duramax Turbo Diesel
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