r/cars 1d ago

Six Education: Inside Porsche's Six-Stroke-Engine Patent

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a63266626/porsche-six-stroke-engine-patent-details/
123 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

60

u/varezhka11 1d ago

It looks like a complex engineering for complexity's sake, just how Germans like it. Similar to expensive mechanical watches or Nissan's VC turbo. No thank you.

57

u/jormailer 1d ago

They said this about turbos, VVL and VVT technology back in the day.

28

u/Realistic_Village184 23h ago

Yeah, there's all sorts of complex engineering that's plenty reliable. Complexity doesn't necessarily correlate with reliability. Current BMW engines are some of the most reliable being made, and Mercedes diesel engines in the 70's-90's are arguably the most reliable engines ever made.

This whole notion that German engineering is unreliable is a complete myth.

1

u/s629c its just a golf 5h ago

The engines themselves are solid, for some reason BMW and VW can’t make water pumps last

9

u/Geofferz 2015 bmw m4 convertible f83 6MT (UK) 21h ago

Expensive mechanical watches are dope.

7

u/duskie3 '22 Volvo V60 21h ago

Yeah European carmakers are doing great right now and definitely don’t need to innovate

1

u/PRSArchon 987 Porsche Boxster S, ‘19 VW eGolf 1d ago

This will never get into series production and they know it

16

u/orhantemerrut 2024 Hyundai Elantra N 1d ago

Interesting, and of course puzzling. The second compression/stroke seems to happen along such a short amount of displacement that it's difficult to surmise its practical function. The first thing that came to my mind is to compensate for turbo lag as the fourth stroke contains both exhaust outtake and air intake. That small power might help with the lag... maybe?

28

u/Gonnaragretthis 1d ago

IIRC, the 4th stroke allows for more complete combustion and helps reduce emissions?

With regulations tightening up, especially in Germany, I see this as a potential play for Porsche to keep ICE alive awhile longer.

2

u/HurjaHerra 14h ago

🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

7

u/Snazzy21 1d ago

They should eliminate the intake valves, and use the intake port at BDC to simultaneously push exhaust gasses from the exhaust valve at the top while replenishing fresh air from below with the help of a supercharger, then close the exhaust valve and inject fuel and ignite for every rotation of the crankshaft.

Makes more power with the same or less weight, is more resistant to carbon build up than traditional valved DI engines, and fuel is added directly at the end-no chance of scavenging.

So basically a proven 2 stroke diesel that uses gasoline

9

u/nguyenm '14 Civic EX 1d ago

That'd require mandatory forced induction for the scavenging effect, as well as a rather lengthy stroke to bore ratio to have somewhat of an efficient combustion process. 

Furthermore, although I may be wrong on this one, most application of 2-stroke diesels are not subject to emissions regulations the same ways automobiles are. So it can forgo a lot of emissions equipment that would reduce the reliability of such engines. 

There's the experimental opposed-piston engine that was featured on Engineering Explained but no commercial application yet, only a military contract.

3

u/LordofSpheres 18h ago

It's already going to require forced induction because they're already using the ports for intake and prior to combustion - and because the intake ports are so low, there won't be time to use blowdown to equalize pressures.

1

u/yamsyamsya 19h ago

this looks like it will be extra annoying to work on.

-6

u/Cubbis_The_Almighty 1d ago

Over engineering🤦🤦 European cars weakness and strength