68fastback
10-13-2010, 01:16 AM
>>>>>
Check this out! (http://ecomotors.com/)
He's president and COO of EcoMotors (http://ecomotors.com/o-john-coletti).
They've developed what they claim is a highly power-dense dual cylinder 2-stroke engine with two opposined pistons/cylinder. If a typical IC engine converts about 30-35% of its fuel energy into mechanical energy, this Opposed Piston Opposed Cylider (OPOC) engine supposedly does about 50% better than that.
One con-rod/cyl pushes in a conventional manner while the opposite piston's rear side-mounted rod pulls on another crank journal -- two power strokes/cylinder on every rotation! Pretty cool.
It clearly works, in principle, but will it cut muster in real world applications? Dunno, but some research showed that Bill Gates recently invested $23M of his own money in the company. Hmmm.
How do they get around the typical 2-stroke gas and oil residual emissions problem? Supposedly with sophisticated electronic controls and an electric-assisted turbo that eliminates turbo lag when exhaust energy is low and also serves as a generator when exhaust gas energy thermodynamically spools the turbo up.
It's still not apparent how they have truly solved the 2-stroke residual emissions problem unless they have profiled the residuals under a variety of conditions so they can adjust fuel/air accordingly for the next powerstroke -- in essence a defacto in-cylinder EGR -- but that's totally just my speculation.
You might also recognize the name Don Runkle, EcoMotors CEO and former GM technolgoy veteran and vice chairman and CEO of Delphi corp.
EcoMotors is apparently a corporate holding/investmant of Khosla Ventures (started by Vinod Khosla, founder of SUN Microsystems) and is likely how Gates got involved as a partial investor.
Their production focus has recently shifted to a a 300HP/600#ft truck diesel (could this be because the residual emissions problem was tougher than they originally thought?) using a double dual cylinder configuration at about half the size and weight of similar-output conventional diesels.
When I first saw this covered by Automotive Industries magazine a couple months back I honestly viewed it as just another cool idea that will probably fail in commercialization complexities, as most prior cool new engine ideas have. However, now that I see the depth of the players involved, I'm thinking it might really be something that eventually 'makes it.' I see they're working with a Chinese company for potential production -- which makes lots of sense, imo: get it up to scale in some significant application outside the stifling controls of the US and in a climate that is likely far more 'accepting.'
Who knows?!
Anyhow, this is not your typical start-up, imo, in that it has both strong executive and technical leadership -- and d-e-e-p pockets with been-there VC experience.
Pretty cool stuff and will be very interesting to watch.
I give this one a solid 1.85 thumbs-up!! :grin:
Check this out! (http://ecomotors.com/)
He's president and COO of EcoMotors (http://ecomotors.com/o-john-coletti).
They've developed what they claim is a highly power-dense dual cylinder 2-stroke engine with two opposined pistons/cylinder. If a typical IC engine converts about 30-35% of its fuel energy into mechanical energy, this Opposed Piston Opposed Cylider (OPOC) engine supposedly does about 50% better than that.
One con-rod/cyl pushes in a conventional manner while the opposite piston's rear side-mounted rod pulls on another crank journal -- two power strokes/cylinder on every rotation! Pretty cool.
It clearly works, in principle, but will it cut muster in real world applications? Dunno, but some research showed that Bill Gates recently invested $23M of his own money in the company. Hmmm.
How do they get around the typical 2-stroke gas and oil residual emissions problem? Supposedly with sophisticated electronic controls and an electric-assisted turbo that eliminates turbo lag when exhaust energy is low and also serves as a generator when exhaust gas energy thermodynamically spools the turbo up.
It's still not apparent how they have truly solved the 2-stroke residual emissions problem unless they have profiled the residuals under a variety of conditions so they can adjust fuel/air accordingly for the next powerstroke -- in essence a defacto in-cylinder EGR -- but that's totally just my speculation.
You might also recognize the name Don Runkle, EcoMotors CEO and former GM technolgoy veteran and vice chairman and CEO of Delphi corp.
EcoMotors is apparently a corporate holding/investmant of Khosla Ventures (started by Vinod Khosla, founder of SUN Microsystems) and is likely how Gates got involved as a partial investor.
Their production focus has recently shifted to a a 300HP/600#ft truck diesel (could this be because the residual emissions problem was tougher than they originally thought?) using a double dual cylinder configuration at about half the size and weight of similar-output conventional diesels.
When I first saw this covered by Automotive Industries magazine a couple months back I honestly viewed it as just another cool idea that will probably fail in commercialization complexities, as most prior cool new engine ideas have. However, now that I see the depth of the players involved, I'm thinking it might really be something that eventually 'makes it.' I see they're working with a Chinese company for potential production -- which makes lots of sense, imo: get it up to scale in some significant application outside the stifling controls of the US and in a climate that is likely far more 'accepting.'
Who knows?!
Anyhow, this is not your typical start-up, imo, in that it has both strong executive and technical leadership -- and d-e-e-p pockets with been-there VC experience.
Pretty cool stuff and will be very interesting to watch.
I give this one a solid 1.85 thumbs-up!! :grin: