Thanks for finding this big mike. I couldn't agree with you more. I wish we all had access to the small eficient diesels that Europe and Asia are flooded with. I wish I could have aforded to install the 1KD-ftv that toyota is intalling in the current model hilux. It is incredibly efficient with variable vane turbo, variable valve timing, 16 valve dual overhead cam and high pressure common rail injection. Hopefully one day.

Need more info on this.  Because they are running lower compression than regular diesels.  And from my knowledge, is that diesel motors are direct injected at TDC, but this advertisement says they are not. 

Diesels are a good way to go for fuel efficiency, but most people don't know how to properly drive a motor that is running a turbo, diesel or not.  And diesels are meant to be driven, and they don't seem to really hold up to short drives.  I've know alot of people who have killed diesel motors in all makes, doing 2 to 5 mile drives only.  And I know people who use diesels for long drives, and getting 3-400,000 miles out of them easily.  I would need to see more reading material on this. 

So what kind of power do these things make?  TopGear UK did a thing on economy cars and one of them was a diesel and it ended up being one of the worst since it was so underpowered you had to have your foot in it the entire time to really get anywhere

With the proper size tire and gear combo (35" & 3.73:1) I am hoping to be at 30 MPG. Stock engine torque numbers are 212 @ 2000. I will be higher than that with my exhaust mods and the intercooler I have planned. ( probably closer to 260). The current generation 1KD-ftv will do more like 300 ft/lbs. and get closer to 35 MPG. I wouldn't pay any attention to anything Jeremy Clarkson says about diesel. He hates diesel cars.

Wasnt talking about whatever diesel you're running and while he hates diesels he does have a point with it. If somthing is so grosely underpowered due to all this "economy" bs it doesnt really matter when you have to have your foot in it the entire time to get anywhere. the same can be said for gas engines too.

According to the article, they have gone away from traditional thermodynamic theory by optimizing other aspects of the engine. It is true that a lower pressure change will result in reduced thermal efficiency of a diesel cycle, but it looks to me that they are instead manipulating other factors to better accommodate our non-ideal environment.

For instance, they have reduced the temperature of the exhaust which helps maintain lower cylinder temperature which combats detonation so that a more aggressive timing curve may be used to get better efficiency without damaging the engine.

Keep in mind to not be fooled here too. Lower CR does away with beefed-up & heavy pistons/rods/crankshaft/cylinder walls. So they are also indirectly increasing efficiency by eliminating parasitic loses associated with high CRs.

I suppose one could run a very low CR and simply add in a ton of boost, so long as the engine would fire when cold and have a smooth idle (of course these are limiting factors so we don't see this) ....But perhaps a 10:1 CR with 40 psi boost could be designed to have the same cylinder pressure and temperature change as a 20:1 CR at 10 psi boost.... My point being that we shouldn't simply take reading "lower CR" at face value. Sure there are many factors at play but its so cool to me to see engineers toying with other alternatives!

Now they just need to properly market it for all the soccer moms picking up cat food from the grocers at 3pm every afternoon and we'd be set!

BigMike

I have a 2012 TDI and its got loads of power.  The common rail system makes them quiet and efficient.  We can get 49mpg on trips If I stay under 80.  (which I usually don't.)  The Mazda diesel that the thread was started about is in a racing series.  I just read about it in my diesel power magazine.  compound turboed.  Makes 400 hp at 5k rpm and 475 ft of torque at 3600 rpm.  It races in the grand am gt class.  Has 9 poles and 9 wins. 
Actually thinking about trading in the wifes golf tdi for one of these.  More power and more potential.   

According to the article, they have gone away from traditional thermodynamic theory by optimizing other aspects of the engine. It is true that a lower pressure change will result in reduced thermal efficiency of a diesel cycle, but it looks to me that they are instead manipulating other factors to better accommodate our non-ideal environment.

For instance, they have reduced the temperature of the exhaust which helps maintain lower cylinder temperature which combats detonation so that a more aggressive timing curve may be used to get better efficiency without damaging the engine.

Keep in mind to not be fooled here too. Lower CR does away with beefed-up & heavy pistons/rods/crankshaft/cylinder walls. So they are also indirectly increasing efficiency by eliminating parasitic loses associated with high CRs.

I suppose one could run a very low CR and simply add in a ton of boost, so long as the engine would fire when cold and have a smooth idle (of course these are limiting factors so we don't see this) ....But perhaps a 10:1 CR with 40 psi boost could be designed to have the same cylinder pressure and temperature change as a 20:1 CR at 10 psi boost.... My point being that we shouldn't simply take reading "lower CR" at face value. Sure there are many factors at play but its so cool to me to see engineers toying with other alternatives!

Now they just need to properly market it for all the soccer moms picking up cat food from the grocers at 3pm every afternoon and we'd be set!

BigMike

this is right. I had a thermodynamics/ heat transfer teacher back in college that was a R&D engineer for Catapillar before he went back to school for his PHd and we actually discussed this theory that higher thermodynamic efficiency does not always yield greater efficiency. I stayed ater class many times to discuss engine design as i have always been facinated by it. He said they had studied this at great lengths at CAT during his work there and brought up lowering the compression to try and get injection at or miliseconds before TDC to get the most efficient burn of the fuel because it puts you at the greatest pressure possible and exerts the greatest amount of force on the piston because it optimizes your burn time, longer burn time means more torque. seeing as the true efficiency of a internal combustion motor is much less than the theoretical thermodynamic efficiency shows how the theory can hold true because we cant reach theoretical efficiency anyhow due to material restrains and the enviroment the engine has to live in.

He also brought up a cool theory where they built a diesel engine  completely out of high melting point ceramic composites to raise the operating temperature above the melting point of your common engine materials to try and raise the thermal efficiency and thus the overall efficiency and it worked he said but the motor was too fragile and expensive for production. this was in practice the opposite of what Mazda is doing in these new engines.

I would be leary to say lower CR reduces the need for beefed up internal combustion chambers without factoring in the amount of boost being thrown into the cylinder might bring the cylinder pressure back to where it once was.  lots of newer motors have reduced displacement for higher boost to appease the EPA and still achieve more power, ford trucks 7.3 vs 6.0 as an example, and maintaining the same engine displacement and lowering the CR to gain boost is an expansion of that theory as i would see it.

another interesting fact i learned about diesel engines from him was the difference in efficiency while idling that can be achieved through direct injection vs indiect injected diesels and indirect injected gas vehicles.  In direct injected motors you only have to inject enough fuel to combat the frictional losses due to the rotating mass beacuase the conditions in the combustion chamber are already over the flash point of the fuel, where as in indirect injected engines your constrain is you need to inject enough fuel to have the proper AFR for complete combustion. the ammount of fuel for the correct AFR is actually signifigantly larger than the amount of fuel needed to over come the parasidic losses of the rotating mass although most motor comanies do not optimize on this as well as i believe they could.

sorry if this is me rambling but i get all fired up when it comes to discussing theoretical efficiencies of engines.

I think the US has got a bad deal when it comes to efficient diesels in economical packages in the past not based on emissions as much as we are the largest consumer of petrolium in the world and OPEC does not want us getting to the effiencies reached in other countries where they have had to push efficiency due to fuel costs being ALOT higher than the US.  just think of a 5% efficiency increase for every car in amaerica, cut 5% of the fuel used and look what that profit loss means to the oil companies.

that is my conspiracy theory anyways......now i got to go grab my foil hat....lol

These are all reasons why I wish I could have aforded to use the current generation 1KD-ftv. It has only slightly lower compression, but has a totally redisigned head incorporating 16 valves, variable valve timing, veriable vane turbo and common rail injection. Unfourtunately the half cuts are about three times as expensive.