BMW's New Diesel Engine Has Four Friggin' Turbos
Diesel engines may be under a lot of scrutiny right now thanks to the whole VW thing, but that doesn’t mean innovation stops. Only a few weeks ago Audi revealed its 4.0-litre V8 TDI SQ7 with electric compressor technology, and now BMW has released a similarly punchy 3.0-litre oil-burner.
It’s a replacement for the old triple-turbocharged unit (pictured above), only this time BMW has upped the ante and added a fourth turbocharger. Yep, quad-turbocharged - not something you’ll see terribly often outside of a Bugatti Veyron.
Details are still fairly thin on the ground, but according to Bimmerpost, we’re looking at 389bhp and 561lb ft of torque. It could be good for more twist than that, but apparently the ZF eight-speed is the limiting factor here: it’s simply not able to take any more torque.
The old triple-turbo ‘N57S’ unit had a small blower for low revs, a larger turbocharger that kicked in at the mid-range, and another smaller one for higher engine speeds. What the new engine (designated B57) does is replace the larger turbocharger with a pair of smaller units, giving a quartet of little turbos. As well as upping power the new quad-turbo system is responsible for a five per cent drop in fuel consumption.
The engine will first appear in the BMW 750d xDrive, where it’ll propel you from 0-60mph in just 4.5 seconds. Although we’re holding out hope for the engine to appear in a successor to the M550d…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Hey bro, I heard you like turbos, so we turbo’d your turbos, so that you’re boosting while you’re boosting!
Yo dawg, I heard you liked turbos. So let me turbo your turbo while you can turbo while you turbo
Now rebuild that engine and up them turbos to more psi.
There will a time when an engine will have more turbos than cylinders. 😜
Haven’t you seen the twin-turbo 1-cyl motocross-bike?
This is so gonna be optional
I like that - more turbochargers than swept volume in litres!! I have a lot of faith in BMW engineering. Theirs is an holistic approach, where the car is designed to work as a whole, not as a collection of components put together into the form of a car. That mantle lies with Volkswagen.
I will wait 2 generations, when it will have 6 turbos
“It could be good for more twist than that, but apparently the ZF eight-speed is the limiting factor here: it’s simply not able to take any more torque.”
I think we all know a solution for that problem… manual, bro!
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Such TORQUE! Many turbosss!