It’s taken Honda a while to settle down to the idea of diesel motoring, but they appear to be on the right track now. For those of you with short memories, as recently as the previous generation CR-V, Honda said they’d never make a diesel motor car. Then they did with the 2.2-litre i-DTEC that made its way into the CR-V, Civic and Accord. Honda also said they were committed to normally aspirated V-TEC’s and hybrid drivetrains and they’d never go turbocharged. Well, according to the latest reports, the next Civic Type-R will in fact be fed with forced induction. Hallelujah we say.
It appears then that the talented and yet very stubborn Honda engineers have set aside their pride and started to come to the party at last. The next task is to downsize that 2.2-litre i-DTEC and show the rest of the world what proper diesel economy is all about, Japanese-style.
Honda has just introduced details on its new 1.6-litre i-DTEC diesel engine, the first from its new ‘Earth Dreams Technology’ series to be offered in Europe and eventually in South Africa. The new diesel engine unit will be manufactured at the company’s facility in Swindon, in the U.K. Thanks to its aluminum cylinder head joined to an open deck aluminium-block, this is the lightest diesel in its class and weighs 47 kg less than the current 2.2-litre.
It produces 88 kW at 4 000 r/min and has peak torque of 300 Nm at 2 000 r/min. Here’s the cool part, CO2 emissions stand at only 94 g/km and fuel consumption is rated at 3.6 L/100 km. The Civic will apparently be the first to get this frugal engine in early 2013, followed the same year by the new CR-V. The engine’s Garret turbocharger features an efficient variable-nozzle design and its rotational speed is precisely controlled by the car’s electronics. The i-DTEC also uses a Bosch solenoid injection system, which is capable of operating at a high pressure of 1 800 bar and the turbo has a maximum boost pressure of 1.5 bar.
“The key focus of our Earth Dreams Technology philosophy is to balance environmental efficiency with the dynamic performance expected of a Honda,” says Suehiro Hasshi, Project Leader for all Civic models in Europe, including the 1.6-litre i-DTEC. “There were no benchmarks for us because those targets would have been too low. We were determined to establish a benchmark of our own that our competitors would have to follow,” Hasshi said.
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments
