Ford are proud of their latest engine, the EcoBoost. This is especially for the 1.0liter version which has been named "Best Engine" in its class at the 2016 International Engine of the Year Awards. The three cylinder version of the turbocharged Ford engine won based on the drivability, performance, economy, refinement and technology of the engine.
The press note from Ford Motor Company below is a short and sweet read. It tells you how their engines started out. From large V8s, V6s and right down to the current tiny tot - the 1.0liter EcoBoost. In those days, things were all mechanical. Nowadays, you get ECUs which manage the whole engine from the ignition to the fueling and then even to the valve timings and other stuff that allows a small engine to make as much power as a 1930s Flathead V8. Why was the old V8 called a Flathead? - This is because the valves are on the side of the engine block instead of the cylinder head. A simple robust design but not so efficient..
1937 V8 Flathead
The original 1932 221cubic inches or 3.6liter Flathead V8 from the 1930s made 65hp with a torque figure somewhere close to 190Nm. It needed so much cubic capacity to make a mere 65hp. Not a whole lot of power originally. Of course, these days, a lot of these engines are still used in American Hot Rods, with close to 700hp after tuners pour obscene amounts of money into it. But the original made very little horses. Even the 1.0liter EcoBoost made more than it.
The 2016 1.0liter EcoBoost in the Ford Fiesta sold in Malaysia makes 125hp and 149Nm. More than double the horses from a tiny engine. Quite an achievement. Now isn't that an achievement worth talking about?
Now do read the article below for a bit more interesting tech stuff.
The Secret Ingredient in the Award-winning EcoBoost
For the fifth consecutive year, the Ford 1.0-liter EcoBoost has been named “Best Engine” in its
class at the 2016 International Engine of the Year Awards, based on drivability, performance,
economy, refinement and technology.
A lot of ink has been spilled about the award-winning recipe of the Ford EcoBoost engines. But
what many people don't know is that the secret sauce actually lies in the software – and it’s
been brewing for more than 40 years.
Lift the hood of any EcoBoost-powered Ford and the eye is drawn immediately to the engine –
few would notice the little black box discretely located to the side. But unbeknownst to many,
that diminutive box holds the key to the EcoBoost’s balance of power and fuel economy: millions
of lines of code.
"Engines today are basically lumps of metal without the software," says John Rollinger, Ford
Motor Company's technical leader for powertrain and gasoline engine control. “That little black
box is actually the brain powering the entire vehicle. Without it, there would be no EcoBoost.”
The software behind the EcoBoost helps it to act like a much larger engine when customers
want power – whether it’s on the track or accelerating on the highway to avoid a dangerous
situation – while having the capability to be extremely efficient during day to day driving.
But how did the software behind the fuel efficient range of EcoBoost engines come about? Its
roots can be traced back over 40 years.
Where it all began
V6 Cologne in a 1970s Ford Capri
In the ‘70s, software began playing a larger and larger role in engine technology. The shift
wasn’t born out of the need for more power, but from a need to build cleaner, more fuel efficient
cars.
"The fuel crisis that hit in the mid ‘70s was a major turning point for Ford in terms of developing
cleaner and more fuel-efficient engines,” said Rollinger. “People were beginning to demand
engines that were fuel efficient but didn’t sacrifice performance, and we quickly realised that the
best way forward was with the help of software solutions.”
So Ford began to tinker. New three-way catalytic converters helped reduce pollutants, but they
required more precise control. To meet this challenge, Ford introduced its first electronic engine
controller (EEC), the earliest form of what is now known as the engine control unit (ECU) – that
little black box that accompanies every engine.
The first three generations of EEC gave Ford vehicles basic control of key engine elements,
including electronic fuel injection, spark control and air-fuel ratio. But the major breakthrough in
software processing came in the mid '80s with the introduction of EEC-IV and EEC-V.
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"The EEC-IV was built around a processor that had 64K of ROM*, but within one year the EEC-
V had 1 MB of ROM – so it shows you how fast the technology was growing. It was also around
then that we started to use high-level code, which meant that engines were starting to work
harder and faster for drivers."
At the same time, the advent of onboard diagnostics (OBD) also took off.
“That little engine light that sits on your dashboard was a big turning point in the late ‘80s. This
is when we started to use software to look for malfunctions and let the customer know of any
potential issues or if service is needed”.
By the mid ‘90s engines were completely controlled electronically. Computing software had also
become more than just about engine control – advances in OBD, transmission and fuel
management meant a smooth, more efficient driving experience.
In 2003 another major breakthrough hit – Ford introduced drive-by- wire. This meant that drivers
were no longer linked mechanically to the engine; instead their accelerator inputs were fed
through the ECU that directly controls the engine. Because of this, engineers could fine tune
every system to make the driving experience even more efficient in delivering power and
economy.
“Over the next few years, innovations in our software began to happen closer and closer
together. By this time, Ford had made rapid advances in monitoring and we started to
experiment more aggressively with fuel efficiency. This laid the groundwork for the development
of EcoBoost.”
EcoBoost: Built on software
Rollinger has a wealth of automotive software control experience, and has been front
and center for some of Ford's major computing and software milestones. But for him, nothing
has been as impressive as the advent of the software for EcoBoost engines.
The team of in-house software control engineers – today 100 and counting – were handed the
difficult task of achieving unprecedented levels of fuel efficiency without compromising power,
using a combination of software and the latest iteration of engine technologies like direct
injection, variable valve timing and turbocharging.
To achieve the proposed level of power and efficiency for the new generation engines, an
extraordinary level of precision was required. From ultra-precise fuel injections to continuously
fluctuating fuel injection pressure, minuscule changes controlled by software made all the
difference. For example, injection timing is adjusted up to 300 times a second to optimise
combustion, resulting in a cleaner, more efficient burn.
“To be able to extract maximum efficiency out the hardware, we had to piece together hundreds
of thousands of lines of computer code and related parameters. In the end we created one of
the most sophisticated suites of software in the automotive industry at the time, and EcoBoost
was born.”
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The outcome was a fuel efficient and power-dense engine. The high-power output meant a
smaller EcoBoost engine achieved the same output as a larger, traditional engine. The
EcoBoost software also helped the team to eliminate the traditional limitations of turbocharged
engines, such as turbo lag – this means that when a driver steps on the accelerator, there’s
minimal delay and they’ll immediately feel that soulful “oomph” of the EcoBoost engine.
The heart of the EcoBoost software responsible for this is composed of a unique database –
built completely in-house – of information about how the engine and transmission operates. The
engine has access to this deep library of data to enable the engine to play a lot of “what if”
scenarios to prepare for anticipated driver demands.
“Let’s say there is a driver who is about to merge onto the highway. If there is an anticipated
transmission upshift, the software is prepared to tell the engine to close the throttle slightly and
leave the turbo wastegate closed to maintain boost pressure – no power will be sacrificed.”
Whatever the engine anticipates for, the driver is ensured a seamless and exhilarating driving
experience.
“When we launched the first EcoBoost engine, and for the first time we were powering these
larger vehicles with this new class of power-dense engines, that was a really exciting
development for engine software. We’ve been building on that ever since.”
Is there more to come from EcoBoost?
“Innovations at Ford are happening much closer together, and the next generation of engines
will deliver even better fuel efficiency, without sacrificing the power that drivers love.”
*Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of storage that permanently stores data on electronic devices. It
contains the programming needed to start electronics, performs major input/output tasks and holds
programme or software instructions.
(c) 2016 motoring-malaysia.blogspot.com
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