Yamaha Motorcycle Serial Number Wizards' title='Yamaha Motorcycle Serial Number Wizards' />Massive Fire At Classic Car Dealership Destroys Large Number Of Vintage Cars. Country Classic Cars in Staunton, Illinois, is a well known seller of vintage cars, with an inventory of over 6. American, ranging from the 2. Malaise Era. Unfortunately, one of their warehouses had a colossal fire yesterday, involving nearly a dozen fire departments and destroying a huge number of cars. Luckily, no one was injured, but the building that burned was estimated to have between 1. Fire officials are not yet certain what caused the blaze, which seemed to be most intense in the center of the building, suggesting that whatever caused the fire was inside the building, as opposed to an external source. Heres a commercial from Country Classic Cars to get a better idea of what the business was like when not aflame. And, what the hell, heres another, which has a nice Corvair and Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback Its a shame to see so many classics gone like this, but at least no people were injured or worse. The company seems to still have a significant inventory, so this shouldnt be the end of Country Classic Cars. Mazdas Holy Grail Of Gasoline Engines Is Completely Fascinating. Mazdas hotly anticipated SKYACTIV X Spark Controlled Compression Ignition engine has been described as the Holy Grail of gasoline motorssomething with diesel like fuel economy, but far better efficiency. I went to Germany to talk to Mazdas extremely nerdy engineers, and before I actually drove the thing, heres what I learned. Full Disclosure Mazda wanted me to drive their SKYACTIV X prototype, so the company flew me to Frankfurt, Germany, put a nice roof over my head, and fed me delicious foods whose names had more umlauts and Scharfes Ss than I could count. Mazda brought executive officers, VPs and managers from its powertrain, vehicle development, and research and development teams to explain to journalists how the SKYACTIV X Spark Controlled Compression Ignition engine works, and why it matters. In addition, Mazda discussed its all new platform, which is where well start before jumping into the exciting SPCCI engine goodness. The New Platform. Despite having driven some prototype next generation Mazda. Frankfurt, I cant really say much about its improvement over the outgoing bones. Yamaha Motorcycle Serial Number Wizards' title='Yamaha Motorcycle Serial Number Wizards' />But the main points executive manager of vehicle development Hiroyuki Matsumoto stressed when talking about the new structure dealt with refinement. Matsumoto said that, in its effort to improve a driving feeling they call Jinba Ittai Connection between horse and rider, the company studied the human gait to establish a platform that optimizes human ability to balance. Part of that involved designing the seat supports to maintain natural S curve of the spinal column by the erection of the drivers pelvis you can see that below. Mazda also designed a new seat structure thats apparently able to quickly and smoothly transmit the energy input from vehicle body to the drivers pelvis. On top of that, Matsumoto told journalists that the body has been stiffened to reduce the transient response time between the input load on one damper, and the response load at the damper in the opposite corner. Mazda does this by using what it calls ring structures shown in the dotted green circles below The engineer also mentioned suspension and tire changes aimed at smoothly controlling energy transfer from the wheel to the body, as well as NVH changes like the 1. Ultimately, Mazdas main points when discussing the new platform seemed to revolve around driver comfort, with emphasis on ride quality, noise, and the way the car communicates inputs to the drivers ass. Unfortunately, I didnt spend enough time in the prototype to really assess how much better this platform is than the last. Well have to wait for a long term test for that. The Benefits Of Compression Ignition. To understand the whole point behind Mazdas new gasoline compression engine tech, lets look at the seven factors the company works on to increase internal combustion engine efficiency shown on the left of the graphic below. They are compression ratio, specific heat ratio, combustion period, combustion timing, heat transfer to the wall, differential pressure between intake and exhaust, and mechanical friction. Improving these attributes theoretically leads towards the ideal internal combustion engine, and SKYACTIV X takes a number of steps in the right direction. Higher Compression Ratio And Specific Heat Ratio. Mazda mentions in its presentation that combustion engine efficiency is related to compression ratio and the intake charges specific heat ratio via the equation above. In other words, cranking up compression ratio and specific heat ratios yields better efficiency. SKYACTIV G, Mazdas current generation of gasoline engine technology, used a clever exhaust system, a piston cavity, and a high pressure fuel system with multi hole injectors to prevent knocking and to allow for a ridiculously high 1. SKYACTIV X, a compression ignition engine, cranks that figure up to between 1. Mazdas hotly anticipated SKYACTIVX Spark Controlled Compression Ignition engine has been described as the Holy Grail of gasoline motorssomething with. You have not yet voted on this site If you have already visited the site, please help us classify the good from the bad by voting on this site. As for bumping up that specific heat ratio k value, Mazda says running the engine lean and decreasing its combustion temperature takes care of that. We know that k for air is about 1. Abs Srs Diagnostic Software For Pc. That means the more air you can put into that air fuel charge, the higher that overall k value, and thus the greater the efficiency. Decreased combustion temperatures are a result of lean burn and indeed, why NOx emissions are so low for this type of engine. The benefit, Mazda shows in the plot above, is that the lower combustion temperatures mean less energy is lost to molecular vibrations and decomposition. Thus, a lower combustion temperature yields a higher k, whichagainmeans better efficiency. Combustion Period And Timing. Aside from the higher compression ratio and specific heat ratio it allows, compression ignition engines tend to burn their lean mixtures thoroughly and rapidly. This means energy from combustion can be more efficiently translated into work done on the piston, whereas spark ignition engines tend to involve a significant time delay associated with flame propagation. Pumping Losses And Heat Loss Through Cylinders. The other two areas where a lean compression engine can yield significant efficiency benefits is in cooling losses and throttling losses. The first is fairly straightforward, as lower combustion temperatures mean less heat transferred to the cylinder walls. The second has to do with the fact that a leaner airfuel mixture means theres more air required for a given torque level. Thisalong with strategic use of EGR, variable valve timing and a supercharger to control airflow into the cylinder means the throttle plate can be held fully open more often than on a standard gasoline engine. So instead of trying to suck air through a restrictive throttle plate, air can flow easily into the cylinders. Mazda says this also has the added benefit of improved throttle response, since theres no longer a delay in trying to fill the intake plenum. Emissions. Mazdas new technology also promises reduced emissions, which is a big deal, since Dieselgate is putting a huge damper on compression engines. With internal combustion engines, oxides of nitrogen tend to rise with a higher air fuel ratio up to a point. Above that point, NOx output drops as you can see from this plot. Since Mazdas new engine usually runs at a lambda fuel air ratio relative to stoichiometric of at least 1. NOx output is rather low, and can therefore forgo expensive emissions equipment. Carbon emissions, too, are reduced with SPCCI due to its higher fuel efficiency. How Mazdas SPCCI System Works, Exactly. A gasoline compression ignition engine isnt exactly a new concept. In fact, if you go back an entire decade, youll see that General Motors even had prototype Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition engines with spark assist ready for journalists to drive around the test track. Why, then, is everyone getting excited about Mazdas gasoline compression engine when weve been hearing about similar technologies for years The answer comes down to how Mazdas controlling combustion. The two main issues that Mazda says have impeded the proliferation of gasoline compression engines are 1. The limited zone in which compression ignition is possible and 2. The rough transition between compression and spark ignition. What Mazda has done to solve these problems is devise a system called Spark Controlled Compression Ignition, SPCCI, a strategy in which a spark plug creates a fire ball, which acts to compress the homogeneous mixture of airinert EGR gases and fuel to incite compression ignition. Heres another look from the top of the cylinder look The spark plug itself isnt able to create this fireball with a lean mixture. So what Mazda has done is positioned a fuel injector close to the plug. That high pressure injector initially shoots small amounts of fuel into the cylinder during the intake stroke.