New Ford Direct Injection Ethanol for Both More Power and Better Fuel Economy

Ford is developing a way of boosting fuel economy by injecting ethanol directly into the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber.

According to sources at PickupTrucks.com, the Bobcat is essentially a turbocharged engine running at a high compression ratio. Typically, this combination results in disaster, but Ford's system has a trick up its sleeve in the form of ethanol injection.

The Bobcat builds on Ford's Ecoboost engines by including a direct injected ethanol nozzle that adds small amounts of ethanol to the standard port injected air/fuel mixture. The ethanol cools the combustion chamber to prevent premature detonation, allowing the turbocharged engine to run extreme compression ratios.

The system promises 5 to 10 percent greater fuel economy than EcoBoost engines, which already promise a 20 percent increase over Ford's traditional engines. Turbodiesel enthusiasts already know that high compression plus a turbo equals gobs of torque, which is why the Bobcat is speculated to be a potential replacement for the large diesel power plants that power Ford's heavy- and super-duty trucks. A 5.0-liter turbo V-8 with ethanol boost could be rated at 500 horsepower and 700 foot-pounds of torque. _Source_via_Biofuelsdigest

Smaller engines for the same power--but better economy--may become a common theme in transportation and industry. The theme underlying that approach is "doing more with less." As humans begin utilising nanotechnology, advanced biotechnology, and other disruptive technologies made possible by the affluence produced by market economics, this will be a much more widespread theme. "More with less" will be built into just about all products and systems.