100+mpg engine?

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buickgnx88

buickgnx88

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Last night on WCCO radio (Minnesota) they had a guest who explained that he figured out a way to get 110mpg out of a V8 in an '87 Mustang, while getting 400hp and 12.8 in the quarter mile. He did it for a competition called the Progressive Automotive X Prize, where people try to make an engine achieve 100+mpg. He was trying to get various engine shops together so he could produce the engine in large numbers (he was hoping for 10,000 a year) and put them in SUV's, trucks, and larger cars.

His website is http://www.hp2g.com and here's a press release explaining a bit more http://www.hp2g.com/pressrelease.html

He didn't give any specifics about how it achieved so much, other then on E85 it got around 80mpg and with gas it would get around 110mpg. Of course he probably didn't want to give away any secrets, nor did he have a price in mind yet. If this is indeed true, we'd sure see another increase in SUV/Truck sales! :lol:
 
Did he gear it pretty tall? Seems like he'd have to be turning 1200 RPMs at 80MPH to get figures like that...
 
He really didn't specify much other then what I said in the first post. Gearing could have been part of it, but the DJ couldn't really get any specifics out of him.
 
buickgnx88
110mpg out of a V8 in an '87 Mustang, while getting 400hp and 12.8 in the quarter mile.
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I bet he can't have both at the same time, though. I'm sure a lot of today's high-mpg-mobiles could get decent quarter mile times if you hung the economy and just went for speed.
 
I highly doubted it when I saw it. If that's true, he could sell the technology to the Detroit 3, making $1 billion off each one.
 
Roo
I bet he can't have both at the same time, though. I'm sure a lot of today's high-mpg-mobiles could get decent quarter mile times if you hung the economy and just went for speed.
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Exactly what I was about to say! :lol:

To be honest, the hard part will be getting manufacturers to take up the idea. We've seen this before, with companies like Zeroshift, who made a gearbox that had completely seamless shifts, quicker even than DSG. Trouble is they simply don't have the might to entice big automakers when companies like VW can produce the less efficient and more expensive DSG in greater numbers.
 
As I understand the matter, what he did is boost efficiency of the engine. As you probably know, the efficiency of an average internal combustion engine is about 20% (according to Wiki). If this guy has found a way to boost that, an engine may actually produce such horsepower while being extremely good in fuel consumption even when you use that grunt. So in theory, it could work if you find a way to raise efficiency. I don't really think he has though, I think it's a hoax.
 
Well, you'd certainly be better off to design a new engine than use a Mustang V8. They weren't exactly conceived to be efficient.

But in modern automobiles the real issue is the weight of the car, and has little to do with the engine. Our cars are lugging around hundreds of extra pounds, destroying fuel economy.
 
buickgnx88
He really didn't specify much other then what I said in the first post. Gearing could have been part of it, but the DJ couldn't really get any specifics out of him.
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Of course he couldn't.

Look at it this way: what are the odds that Ford would be willing to waste billions of engineering dollars and still not come up with similar results as some guy with a wrench in Minnesota?

And what are the odds that oil companies could pay them enough to suppress technology like that?
 
LoudMusic
Well, you'd certainly be better off to design a new engine than use a Mustang V8. They weren't exactly conceived to be efficient.
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If he really found a way to make a conventional engine more efficient, I suppose it can be done with pretty much any model. Some will surely work better than others, but the fact that he's done it with a Mustang engine (given that he has actually done it) would be even more impressive.
LoudMusic
But in modern automobiles the real issue is the weight of the car, and has little to do with the engine. Our cars are lugging around hundreds of extra pounds, destroying fuel economy.
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Absolutely true, but if you find a way to boost the economy of the engine, weight loses its impact. I'm not implying that it wouldn't play a role at all, should we ever find the right way with IC engines, but the problems cars have nowadays surely are connected to the shortcomings of the engine by quite a margin.
 
I agree that this should be taken with a grain of salt, until more official news is released (if there is any). On this page the guy says that he has the engine working at 38% efficiency, which goes along with what The Interceptor was suggesting.

Here's another forum that has a thread about it, and most people there are pegging it as BS. Linky But here is an interesting post in it:

From Ecomodder
Ok, now that all your BS meters have been pegged, lets think outside the box( and yes this is purely speculation).Doug has an electrical engineering degree, and apparently is a master mechanic too. He has been working with Ford for a few yrs now till the Big 3 started layin off folks and all the people he was workin with took an early retirement. (this all from research on the web) He has a patented block girdle that helps keep the block together under extreme stress. Articles from as early as January of this yr stated he was getting 80 mpg, said they had made some mods to the block but that most of the mods were of an electrical nature. Pondering all this and the claims he makes; one of the things I would conclude that he has done is eliminate the camshaft and incorporated a fully electronic and infinitely programable valve train; in other words selinoid activated valves controled by a computer. This is the only way (in my eyes) he would be able to meet all the claims he has made, and the article says he has been workin on this for 10 yrs now. If thats the case, then I would expect the fuel induction system has been dealt the same thought and modification as the valve train.
I'm not sayin he has it , but a few yrs ago students at MIT composed an article stating that with present available technology (and they outlined it) there was no reason an suv couldn't get 40mpg+.
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oh yes, there is a reason.. it's called production costs. in addition, they would probably need to renew assembly line or two for that kind of system, which would mean stopping the production for a moment = loss of money.
 
buickgnx88
Here's another forum that has a thread about it, and most people there are pegging it as BS. Linky But here is an interesting post in it:
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Nice quote and link, thanks for sharing 👍 I lurk on that forum quite a lot, a few of the members have some pretty impressive projects going on! Hadn't seen their take on the Mustang yet though.

To be honest, I won't believe the Mustang guy's claims until it's independantly tested and it's revealed what he's done to the engine. Guilty until proven innocent in my eyes.
 
how he gets better mileage than the old Kawasaki Ninja 250 is beyond me
 
Leonidae
oh yes, there is a reason.. it's called production costs. in addition, they would probably need to renew assembly line or two for that kind of system, which would mean stopping the production for a moment = loss of money.
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And you don't think that they just might make up for that with all the sales they could get from having a line of powerful V8s that all make 50+ mpg? They spend billions trying to meet government fuel economy guidelines. SURELY they could afford to spend that money on guaranteed success if this was true.
 
It's simply unpossible!

Unless... He's using the equivalent of about 25:1 compression, using direct injection, and throttling it with the electronic valve timing.

Of course, not by closing the valves early, but waiting a good bit as they bleed off pressure, then closing off once the working compression ratio is low enough to not detonate. Then the fuel goes in and it goes bang.

This also has the side effect of making the engine breathe like it's much smaller than it really is, and therefore better on fuel.
 
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