I first heard about this watching Top Gear on the BBC (love that show).
http://www.roadandtrack.com/article....rticle_id=3574
Looks like Porsche got together with Borg-Warner and developed a variable vane turbo for gas engines. These have been available for Diesel engines for awhile, and of course were attempted a long time ago by Dodge for gas engines. But VVTs were problematic for gas engines due to the higher EGTs. Apparently they have solved this problem by applying new (to this application) materials.

Pretty cool. It will be interesting to see if
1. The Porsche turbo application ends up being reliable.
2. If BW ever makes these available as stand-alone turbos for yahoos like us.

 

aerocharger.com

 

hasn't porsche been using these for a while? They've been on 911's before last weeks top gear i do believe

 

Wait a sec, I thought TopGear was on break until the Summer? The last episode I've seen was 10x10 (23 Dec 07) where they took three German musclecars to Spain, The Stig drove an F1 car, and Dr. Who drove the Reasonably Priced Car.

Have I missed something?

 

took 3 german musclecars???? doh i missed that one, i saw the 3 porsches in the porsche challenge... I don't know if they are new but i think they are, the one last week had a tractor face-off because they were going to grow green-fuel and get rich???

anyways they tested the new 911 turbo and Jeremy was talking about its variable turbo and what not and how there was power throughout the revs

 

Yeah VVT sucks at least it still does on diesels.

 

I did not think practically speaking the aerocharger was really a viable option? Availability, reliability, rebuild-ability, sizing?

 

Doesn't the 335i/135i use VVTs made by Honeywell?

 

Where are you guys getting your top gear fix? I cant seem to find new episodes within a reasonable time from of when they were released.

 

finalgear.com

the BBC we get here shows top gear a season behind

 

youtube.com

 

Directv, I think on the BBC channel. I have my tivo set for it.

 

Ah. I've never seen those episodes, but my understanding is that they're a season behind, cut-down, and edited for US presentation. The tractor / biodiesel episode and Jeremy driving the 911 were both last year. Did they carry the episode where the gang all flew to Miami on holiday and bought cheap cars? It was earlier in the same season.

SamS is right, FinalGear.com will point you to good quality torrents of the new, uncut UK-spec episodes within hours of their airing on BBC2.

Frighteningly, it appears that NBC is serious about its deal to produce a wholly American version of the show (shot here, with American hosts and an American audience) which I expect will be absolutely horrid. How will they find a Stig who is capable of turning right as well as left?

 

Danica Patrick maybe?

 

The correct term is VNT (variable nozzle turbine), and most of the latest SAE papers on turbocharging seem to feature a VNT turbo in its content. So the future is VNT paired with direct injection. Get ready to see some badass economy-car engines like a 1.1 liter engine with 150 ft. lbs. of torque.

PS: you guys wont believe the new form of knock control that's being used: its running at 17:1 AFR along with direct injection. That's what Ricardo is working on. Apparently the excess charge air has a cooling effect which is amplified by the direct injection which removes most of the heat from compression (both in the compressor and in-cylinder). The result is that they are able to run 11.5:1 compression on 93 octane gasoline.

 

They won't. Any red-blooded 'merican knows all that matters is the quarter-mile (and perhaps a quarter-pounder). The lard-*** American Stig won't have to turn either left or right, he'll just put it in D and mash the pedal on the right.

 

My friends and I wanted to put together a campus version of Top Gear and review popular cars for tuning on campus or for the cheap that a college student would be interested in. We never got it under-way but it would have been fun and cool to do.

17:1 afr is pretty rediculous. course...we can't exactly just ask for direct injection for our miata's now can we...

Also along those lines though Mercedes is putting out a Turbo HCCI engine with Variable Compression.