34:1 Afr?!

[LEAN BURN]

Originally Posted by automotivebreath

Welcome to GoFastNews Michael, thanks for sharing your advanced technology. I'm
particularly interested in the combustion chamber design in use. Are you in a position
to share details?

Our GenI engine is shown in our web-site CEI > Home
If you send me an e-mail, I will be glad to send you our "Lean Burn Update" in PDF file.
At some point in time, I can send you some info on our GenII lean burn engine.
Michael

[Lasse]

How much plug cap affects ability to burn lean mixtures? If it has big effect, maybe we must invent method how to manipulate cap at different compression pressures.

[MAP]

Greetings,

An incidental item here. I'm not trying to speak for CEI, but with the level of corporate involvement evident here (what with their attendant legal departments with their non-disclosure agreements and such,) I would expect that all client-specific test data would be strictly off-limits to the public. As such, there might not be a wealth of data available for public consumption.

Best,
Mark

[nitro2]

In comparison to serious racing ignition systems how do the numbers stack up i.e. rise time, mJ, mA, V etc. By serious racing ignitions I mean something you would find on a drag car (high end MSD etc.). Obviously people have access to some of these numbers, but it would be useful to get more detailed info from CEI in this regard. Thanks.

[Cammer]

I have read all on your website including patents and SAE papers.

I have spent most of my life working in engineering research and I am just trying to get all the facts.

Thank you for sharing your ideas with GFN members.

[automotivebreath]

Originally Posted by LEAN BURN

If you send me an e-mail, I will be glad to send you our "Lean Burn Update" in PDF file.

Please send information to:
automotivebreath@hotmail.com

Thanks!


Michael,
What direction is the large scale in-cylinder flow with this chamber, not related to squish action
but rather intake flow induced motion e.g. swirl?

[MAP]

Greetings,

I'm sure that 2V head with dual concentric discharge plugs is intended to be schematic in nature only. With such a high fractional area devoted to squish/quench, there's precious little room left over the valves. If I could read Mr. Vizard's mind right about now, my guess is that he would be thinking "severely under-valved!"

Going back to the beginning of this thread, I suppose I had two general purposes in mind: first, for the industry as a whole, what would be the ramifications of an extreme lean-burn technology. Second, however, was whether any of this could be leveraged in the here and now to achieve something approaching 30mpg at 60mph cruising, with a 460 hp 383 SBC (10.1:1 SCR; short-duration, high-lift hydraulic roller cam; AFR 195 heads, Edelbrock Performer RPM Air-Gap manifold. On the chassis/drivetrain side of things, wide-ratio 4-speed overdrive auto trans, with tall gearing in lock-up at cruise.) The second purpose is admittedly more selfish in nature than the first, but my guess is that many reading here might similarly benefit from such a discussion, so I thought both purposes were valid.

So now coming back to the idea of what can be done in the here and now, or let's say at least the "almost here" and "soon," I thought that the following link on CEI's website was illuminating:

CEI > Technology and Market Timing

(I've included a .jpg capture at the bottom as a linkable thumbnail.)

The table that they include shows the last two rows as requiring a special 2-plug head, so for the here and now, I assume this option is out. With those two options eliminated, the table suggests that the most that can be obtained with a 2V gasoline engine with a single spark plug, and running with the CEI ignition and as much as 21:1 AFR, is a 15% improvement in economy. This isn't huge, but it's still quite attractive. Going to other concurrent threads, I wonder would could be done by adding Singh grooves and possibly water injection to run as much as 12:1 SCR with pump gas? (I'll leave that as rhetorical question for now, else the thread might fragment beyond hope.)

In this hypothetical scenario, the ignition side of things would be covered by CEI's ignition system or something comparable (and at 21:1, it might not need to be very comparable to afford essentially everything that 21:1 can offer; my impression is that the full benefit of CEI's ignition system isn't needed until one steps up to even higher AFR's.)

But coming back to the fuel delivery side of things, and say something in the region of 17-21:1 at cruise, what are our options? For carburetors, David mentioned that SU's were up to the task, so we have a viable benchmark for carburetion.

My guess too is that if carburetors can handle this, then by virtually by definition, so can throttle-body injection systems.

And then by extension, so too could port-injected, sequentially-fired EFI systems handily handle (!) this. But they'd need to run wide-band O-2 sensors and be specified "non-emissions use only" in order to run in a closed-loop mode, due to moderate lean-burn's high NOx emissions. Ditto the TBI option mentioned above.

Putting all of this together, it seems that 17-21:1 AFR at cruise, with no throttle-change "misbehavior," ought to be eminently achievable in the here and now.

Is this assessment correct?

Best,
Mark

[LEAN BURN]

Dear All,
I find your questions/responses stimulating, and am anxious to respond. But I have an important overseas visitor (with manufacturing also in the U.S.) who you will happy to know is interested in manufacturing some critical components of the ignition system. Please believe me when I say we are far ahead of the rest of the world. I will have time to hopefully answer on Thursday.
Please note that our patented VCR system will not be needed. Our GenII engine system follows the work of Michael May's Fireball, i.e. 16 to 1 CR, 26 to 1 AFR with 40% gain in fuel efficiency. We will use about 12 to 1 CR, up to 30 to 1 AFR, but with two plugs each delivering 150 mj to 200 mj. Besides squish, we plan is to do interesting types of mixture flow, and will have a surprising simple design engine (two vertical valves and a SOHC). If all goes well, we hope you will be beta sites for the ignition.
Regards, Michael

[maddog]

Even if this technology allowed me to run 17:1 at cruise on a single plug normal 4 stroke I would would be interested. The fact that it could do 20:1 would give tremendous fuel savings.

With programable EFI I run at 15.5 but this is at the edge.

I believe there is a great market for a conversion kit in the aftermarket. Would you be able to list the components and approximate costs if you were to do such a kit. Do this before concentrating on the OEM as I have seen a Company spend lots of money trying to market a good product to the OEM with the OEM only "stealing" the product but changing it enough to avoid patent problems.

[MAP]

Hi Maddog,

Short question for now - are you running a conventional oxygen sensor in closed-loop mode? That could explain the instability.

Thanks,
Mark