Infiniti Has Built A Variable Displacement Engine And It's Spectacularly Clever
The idea of a variable displacement engine is something that’s been around for years. Through cylinder shutdown technology, engines like Bentley’s W12 and Aston Martin’s new 5.2-litre V12 can turn off a whole cylinder bank under certain situations, temporarily giving a smaller, more efficient engine. However, the sort of variable displacement tech Infiniti has come up is way, way more clever.
What the company’s new ‘VC-T’ engine can do is change the stroke of the pistons automatically depending on the driving situation, in the process varying the displacement and compression ratio. The con rods are made of two parts, with an actuator connected to the lower ‘multi-link’ part. An electric motor moves the actuator, raising and lowering the piston height where required.
Using this jolly clever tech, the VC-T can have a compression ratio anywhere from 8:1 for the best performance, to 14:1 for the highest efficiency.
Power-wise we can expect around 270bhp, all while giving what Infiniti claims is diesel-rivalling efficiency. Oh, and apparently it’ll be as smooth as a V6. Those are some lofty claims, so we’re fascinated to see how this thing works in reality.
Expect the engine to replace the company’s 3.5-litre V6, making an appearance in multiple Infiniti vehicles. It’ll make its public debut at the Paris motor show.
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
The question is, what car will they put this engine in?
Something like the old G37 would be great, a Q50 coupe perhaps
Well, from the article, we can expect it on every car that now has a 3.5 V6.
Anyway, October is the month we will see this engine.
Another article speaks about 2018 as the date they’ll “release” this engine with their cars.
Probably start on a more economical car, something that the average person won’t abuse a lot. Use it as a test car to see how the engine holds up I would guess.
I read “multi link connecting rods” and started laughing.
I look forward to seeing the engine endurance test results.
Because science.
Too. Much. Science.
VC-T kicked in YO!
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Comment of the week right here.
exactly! perfectly explained :D
They mentioned it could be a replacement for the 3.5 v6, i think it will more likely replace the current 2.0t on the q50 and will be applied on the hatchback q30 as a sport version
Damn, I was trying to work this out, I was getting close to this answer! Ok, maybe not quite that close, but maybe another 2 months and I would’ve worked something similar to this.
Future Nissan/Infiniti guys be like:
For performance Nissans they should make the transition rough and sudden to give a sudden ‘kick in’ feel