Thread: Ethanol injection

interesting Ford developing next-gen, ethanol-boosted engines under Bobcat codename - Autoblog

sooo...why does that reduce knock?

Uneducated guess from me. Cooling effect from alchohol and less prone to predetonation from compression.

well yeah, but you cant just say that it nearly eliminates it. someone is still going to push the car and make it knock.

Originally Posted by Bio248

well yeah, but you cant just say that it nearly eliminates it. someone is still going to push the car and make it knock.

There will likely be adjustments like you do for normal fueling to up the ethanol, when modding the car. This is like combining E85 and a Devils Own alchy injection kit. At least that's how I envision it to be.

Ive been kinda following the EcoBoost concept since I first heard about it maybe a year ago, maybe not quite that long. There is little reason at this point to doubt its effectiveness but Im concerned about the complexity and the approach.

They have added a whole new layer of technology to essentially band-aid the fuel economy/engine efficiency issue. Direct injection has been proven to improve fuel economy and is not really a new technology so much as it is the modification of an existing one, that is to directly inject the fuel into the chamber rather than the intake runner. Its been shown that they can run engines in ultra-lean conditions with direct injection.

Now they are going to throw higher compression and forced induction into the mix and band-aid the effects of that with ethanol injection. I guess my concern here is that what if the owner forgets/neglects or otherwises doesnt replenish the ethonol? Sure you can disable/bypass boost, but your still left with the higher compression that cannot be done away with. Its a known fact that higher compression engines are more efficient but due to the heat generation, you need a fuel that is resistive to pre-detonation. Fuel quality is not that good now days unless they make it flex fuel where you can run E85 and then were back to problem of fuel economy.

I dunno, Im no expert in what they are doing, Ive just followed along with what has been publically avaiable. But it just seems like an overly complicated approach. Ive seen other much less complicated options out there and it seems odd to introduce something like this before trying simplier options.

I guess we'll see, there may be information I am missing that would change my outlook on this.