Japanese manufacturer, Honda, has long since been recognised as an engineering-intensive car maker. A car company that put engineering excellence ahead of all else. In the medium term they’ve had a bit of a tough run of it; what with Tsunamis that disrupted production and a seeming-lack of design vision and product direction. But it’s always most-quiet before the storm, as they say, and Honda has taken the Tokyo Motor Show by storm with news of an entire raft of new technologies it will be introducing.
The first is news of a new Honda developed eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission (DCT) to replace the ageing and antiquated five-speed automatic in the range. Bizarrely to most, the eight-speed DCT will still complement its range of continuously variable transmissions (CVT) that Honda use as an amalgam to hybrid technologies it has.
Honda do say that its eight-speed DCT doesn’t shift like typical DSG gearboxes, but rather it employs a torque converter inside the dual-clutch system for a smoother shift and a more-regular automatic feel at low speeds and from a standing start. The eight-speed DCT can only handle 270 Nm of torque, which rules it out of certain higher performance models. Honda will debut the eight-speed DCT in a normally-aspirated 2.4-litre engine-model first.
The next chapter in Honda’s renaissance is the news that they will be joining the turbocharged, force-fed combustion world with a line of newly-developed VTec Turbo direct injection engines. All of those words are positive. These engines will include a 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo, and two four-cylinder turbos with 1.5-litres and 2.0-litres respectively.
On paper, the engines sound simply fantastic. Honda stated at their unveiling: ‘With the application of variable valve motion technology such as Honda’s unique VTec along with direct injection turbocharging and highly-fluid combustion with reduced engine friction, these engines achieve class-leading output and environmental performance, while downsizing engine displacement.”
Honda didn’t carry on to mention just how much power and torque and environmental performance would be possible from this new line of engines but what they did say is that the top-performing 2.0-liter VTec Turbo will produce more than 206 kW in the new Honda Civic Type R, which is due in 2015.
For the turbo engine range to be class-leading, the 1.0-litre engine will have to offer around 95 kW and 200 Nm of torque and a sub 4.0 L/100 km economy figure to trump the brilliant Ford EcoBoost engine. Similarly, the larger 1.5-litre engine could produce as much as 150 kW and 260 Nm of torque.
Honda has continued testing the 2015 Honda Civic Type R at it’s Tochigi Test Track in Japan, and you can watch Honda’s WTCC driver, Gabriele Tarquini, hoon it around the Nurburgring and say how much he likes it in this video below:
