From the Vault – Fuel For Thought

Street Commodores – 01/07/2008

The year is 2030 and here at HPF we have just finished a DC/DC converter and fuel cell stack upgrade on the new ZZ Commodore, featuring the latest HydroGen9 power plant delivering a whisper quite 300kw of fuel efficient power to the driver with nothing more than a little water exiting the exhaust.

Sound like Sci-Fi fantasy? Maybe or maybe not? On Holden’s website there is a graph showing the predicted evolution of vehicle engines up until the year 2030, they suggest that vehicle engine types will be a considerably different mix over the next 2o years with conventional petrol powered engines making up less than 5% of all cars on the road, fuel cell technology being used by more than 50% of cars on the road and diesel powered vehicles maintaining their market share of around 20%.

With increasing fuel prices and the world’s environmental concerns, there is no doubt the car industry is going through some major changes and now more than ever we are hearing our customers mentioning fuel efficiency and performance in the same sentence. Manufactures are focused on both these issues as well, with more powerful engines being more fuel efficient due to new fuel types and engine development. An interesting example of that being GM’s new “displacement on demand” 6.0litre V8 being offered in the new G8 Pontiac.

The worlds car manufacturers are also developing  vehicles to suit a range of alternative fuels and alongside the traditional range of diesel, petrol and LPG, we are now seeing mixtures of ethanol, methanol, methane (natural gas) and hydrogen fuels being used. One of the most interesting fuel’s currently being used is E85 which is blend of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol and interestingly has an octane rating as high as 105, which could be handy when using it for high performance applications. E85 is widely used in Ireland, Brazil and Sweden and is becoming common in parts of the United States.

It is worth noting that most late model cars are now designed to accept alcohol based fuels however, in order to convert your vehicle to run E85 you would still need to upgrade the ECU and fuel system to deliver 40% more fuel. In some early model vehicles you need to change in-tank fuel pumps to cope with E85 being electrically conductive and you may also need to eliminate bare aluminum, and rubber components due to E85 corrosive nature.

As far as fuels go, there is no doubt that diesel powered vehicles are part of the short and long term solution and provide consumers with fuel economy while still providing reasonable performance. With approx 18% of all new cars sold in Australia and as high as 53% of all new cars sold in Europe being diesel, this increase is being underpinned by a new range of performance diesel vehicles incorporating a range of developing technologies, including common rail and direct injection technology which have been showcased in cars like the Audi R8 Twin turbo V12 diesel concept car producing a 1000nm of tyre melting torque and accelerating from 0-100 in 4.2 Sec while still averaging 12.2L/100klm.

If you think that’s not impressive then go and check out the Banks Racing website and follow the progress of their S10 Pro stock Ute powered by a Twin turbo Duramax 6.6L LBZ V-8 and highly modified Bosch common-rail fuel-injection that produces in excess of 1,200 horsepower. This truck has gone as quick as 7.70 and 180mph all without the normal characteristics of a diesel blowing plumes of black smoke into the atmosphere by Introducing nitrous oxide into the diesel’s intake system, which adds oxygen to the intake air, leans the air/fuel mix and helps  it run cooler and more efficiently.

One problem the Australian diesel car market has faced was our poor quality diesel with high Sulphur content, however over the last 10 years that has dramatically improved due to government legislation and now companies like BP even offer performance based versions like BP Ultimate Diesel which is formulated to have a higher cetane rating compared to other diesels, which they claim improves engine noise and vibration while improving performance.

In recent months at HPF we have also been getting serious about offering performance upgrades for alternative fuels and have carried out a number of upgrades on various diesel and LPG vehicles with some very encouraging results. By simply fitting and tuning various interceptors or Power chips onto common rail diesel powered vehicles  we have been able to adjust boost and fuel pressure to achieve increase’s in power and torque in excess of 25% with no other modifications.  We have also started to fit the latest VSI (Vapour sequential injection) LPG systems that deliver improved power, performance and emission output when compared to conventional LPG systems and we are now even offering systems for the XR6 Turbo.

With Holden due to release a new V6 turbo diesel powered Commodore producing 185kw and 500nm of torque by 2010 it starts to look like a viable option for the performance enthusiast chasing performance and economy and with the addition of an ECU upgrade you could quite conceivably have a healthy 600+nm of torque on tap.

In this uncertain time of Global warming and the increasing price of oil & fuel you can be sure about one thing! If in 20 years time we are all driving Hydrogen, diesel or Ethanol powered commodores we will still be looking for ways to make them go harder.

See you in the future…

Rob Vickery