Layout: Mid-Engine/RWD
Transmission: 6-Speed Sequential
Engine Type: Twin-Turbo Diesel V12
Displacement: 5500 cc
Horsepower: 650 bhp @ ---- rpm
Torque: 812 lb-ft @ ---- rpm


Source: Audi

AUDI AG is once again one step ahead of the opposition: The inventor of ‘TDI’ will become the world’s first automobile manufacturer to fight for overall victory with a diesel engine at the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. The all-new Audi R10, which was unveiled on December 13 in Paris, is powered by a totally new 5.5-litre, twelve-cylinder bi-turbo TDI engine, which is extremely quiet and economical.

The Le Mans Prototype, with over 650 hp and more than 1,100 Newton metres torque, significantly exceeds the
power produced by the majority of previous Audi racing cars – including that of its victorious R8 predecessor. Audi ventures into previously unexplored diesel-engine terrain with the V12 power plant manufactured completely from aluminium. As with the TFSI technology, which triumphed initially at Le Mans before being adopted for mass-production, Audi customers should benefit once again from the lessons learnt in motorsport.

"With the A8 4.2 TDI quattro, Audi already builds one of the most powerful diesel cars in the world,” explained Prof Dr Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, at the R10 presentation in Paris. "The Le Mans project will help our technicians to extract even more from TDI technology. Nowadays, every second Audi is delivered with a TDI engine. We expect that the percentage of diesel engines will be even larger in the future.”

The R10 prototype’s V12 power unit, which is equipped with two diesel particle filters, is hardly recognisable as a diesel thanks to the engine’s smooth running nature. The TDI engine’s specialities presented the Audi Sport engineers with a whole list of challenges. The injection pressure easily exceeds the 1,600 bar achieved in production cars. The usable power band lies between 3,000 and 5,000 revs per minute – an unusually low rev range for a racing engine. The driver must change gear in the R10 far less often than in the R8 because of the TDI engine’s favourable torque curve.

The enormous torque of over 1,100 Newton metres does not only make extreme demands of the R10 transmission system – even the latest generation of engine dynamometers at Audi Sport had to be re-equipped with special gearboxes capable of withstanding the unusual forces.

Additionally, radical changes to the chassis were also necessary. The Audi R10 has a significantly longer wheel base than the R8. The overly wide front tyres are, up until now, unique for a Le Mans Prototype. New technologies were also implemented during the development of the carbon-fibre monocoque. Chassis, engine and gearbox form an extremely rigid, fully stressed unit.

"The R10 project is the biggest challenge ever to have been handed to Audi Sport,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich. "TDI technology has not been pushed to its limits in motorsport yet. We are the first to confront the challenge. The demands of such a project are accordingly high. Long-term technology partners such as Bosch, Michelin or Shell support us in our quest. Together we have the chance to write new chapters in the history books of motorsport and diesel technology.”

The new Audi R10 successfully completed its first test at the end of November. An extensive test programme, including the 12-hour race at Sebring (USA) on 18 March, is scheduled before the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 17/18 June 2006. The development team from Audi Sport is supported by Reinhold Joest’s squad, which also performed this task during the R8 project.

12/22/2005 11:47:15 PM

Verkauft

12/22/2005 11:50:17 PM

Holy crap.

That's friggin' sweet!

12/22/2005 11:50:30 PM

That's pretty cool.

12/22/2005 11:50:54 PM

OOOO

12/22/2005 11:56:26 PM

beautiful
i <3 audi

12/23/2005 1:59:42 AM

awesome!!

race around a track @ full throttle and still get 37 mpg

12/23/2005 10:01:14 PM

12/23/2005 11:20:13 PM

thats pretty cool. Amazing since the power band is between 3-5k. What does it redline at? like 6k? Aren't race engines (gasoline power) suppose to rev to like 9k+? And yes, I know its diesel.

12/24/2005 1:06:44 AM

"suppose" to. says who?


the only reason gas engines rev that high is to extract power.

apparently this diesel doesnt have the same set of parameters

12/24/2005 2:29:07 AM

i couldn't even fit into that thing

12/24/2005 12:53:37 PM

diesel engines make torque... gobs and gobs of torque....

torque X (rpm/5252)= hp

more torque requires less rpm... only small motors need to rev high which is good because only small motors can rev high (well shorter stroke works better for high reving engines)

diesels also fire in a manner that would be considered detonation on a gas motor which puts alot of stress on the pistons rods and crank so all of these parts must be stronger... thus heavier and heavy parts have higher inertia. anything with high inertia resists acceleration more than something with low inertia... in a piston motor the pistons and rods have linear acceleration that never stops (alternates direction) and the crank has centripital acceleration.

in short the moving parts of diesels weigh more and don't like spinning fast.
its also harder to get the explosion to occur at the right time when the motor is spinning fast

the only diesel motor that can spin fast are diesel turbines

12/24/2005 2:03:20 PM

^ so much wrong in that post...

12/25/2005 9:57:35 AM

eric?

12/25/2005 11:09:24 AM

Quote :

"awesome!! race around a track @ full throttle and still get 37 mpg"

haha, i was bout to say the same thing.

its not going for MPH, its shooting for MPGs

12/25/2005 11:27:49 AM

^^^^i dunno where you got all that info on diesel engine internals being ridiculously heavy or the part about detonation but im going to have to go with poe there and say theres more wrong than right there...

12/25/2005 12:09:53 PM

school me poe

please if i'm ignorant then i'd surely like to learn

it was hastely written and there are some things i'd like to change. but its past revison date and i don't feel like quoting the whole thing



[Edited on December 25, 2005 at 12:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/25/2005 12:10:19 PM

Quote :

"diesel engines make torque... gobs and gobs of torque.... more torque requires less rpm... only small motors need to rev high which is good because only small motors can rev high (well shorter stroke works better for high reving engines) diesels also fire in a manner that would be considered detonation on a gas motor which puts alot of stress on the pistons rods and crank so all of these parts must be stronger... thus heavier and heavy parts have higher inertia. anything with high inertia resists acceleration more than something with low inertia... in a piston motor the pistons and rods have linear acceleration that never stops (alternates direction) and the crank has centripital acceleration. its also harder to get the explosion to occur at the right time when the motor is spinning fast"

Yes, but some spark ignition engines make gobs of torque too. How much torque does a top fuel dragster make, and how high does it rev? NASCAR, as stuck in the past as they are, rev these small blocks (a heavy engine by comparison) to nearly 10000 rpm. A lot of light little stock honda four cylinders don't rev above 7000.

More torque does not require less rpm. Smaller engines do rev better because they have lighter weight internals, which makes for less reciprocating mass, like you said. Torque and rpm are not related solely one with the other. Diesels make torque at lower rpms due to the dynamics of the engine and the combustion process. They simply cannot rev as high as gasoline engines. Mechanical injection diesels seldom see more than about 3000-3500 rpm because the injection timing can't be adjusted to get ignition to happen at the correct time. 5000 rpm for a diesel is quite high, and is achieved by light weight internals, electronic control, and super high fuel pressure. Higher fuel pressure makes for smaller fuel droplets, which vaporize quicker and reduce overall ignition delay period, allowing for higher rpm operation.

The torque peak of spark ignition engines depends on many things, such as plenum volume, runner length, exhaust design, cam profile, etc. NASCAR engine probably produce peak torque in the 7000-8500 range; stock small block chevy is probably around 3000. Engines have the same dimensions internally (close enough for comparison purposes), you see the difference?

Diesels rely on the auto-ignition of the fuel, yes. However, unlike detonation/auto-ignition in a spark ignition engine, the auto-ignition is timed to occur at or just before TDC. Auto-ignition in a gasoline engine is not the same thing. If the mixture auto-ignites, it is uncontrolled and occurs before the spark plug fires, which is well before TDC. This force resists the piston traveling upward, which doesn't happen in a diesel - if it does, the same sort of damage occurs as if a spark ignition engine auto-ignites the mixture.

Strong doesn't always equate with heavy. I'm sure that a well funded factory race team isn't sparing an expense to make the lightest weight, most powerful engine it can. If they can prove this diesel in racing, it will ultimately aid in their reputation with consumer diesels.

[Edited on December 25, 2005 at 7:24 PM. Reason : ]

12/25/2005 7:18:17 PM

see i knew most of what you said but a top fuel car is a different animal.. anything with boost will make more torque than a stock motor any big motor will lean more towards torque than hp than a small motor with the same heads/cam profile (strokers etc. on the same block)

nascar motors aren't heavy internally.. thats how they pull it off.. if you'd seen the materials used in them you'd know what i'm talking about

indycar motors do have a much larger bore/stroke ratio to allow them to rev like they do nascar motors also have a larger bore/stroke ratio than an 350 sbc even though they have a similar displacement.

the rattle in a diesel motor IS DETONATION just like a gas motor they're just built strong enough to handle it... the new quiet diesels have better fuel systems and don't detonate as much thus can be made out of aluminum etc. such as the duramax.

boosted motors act like big motors both of which make gobs of torque diesels are usually either big ,boosted or both making them low end torquey motors.


now.. you will metion something about imports being boosted yadda yadda yadda... if the turbo is big enough and spoools late you can change the dynamic of a boosted motor into a high rpm setup with a high a/r ratio. or with a centrifugal supercharger which also will spool with rpm.

cams can also change the dynamic of a motor but when it comes down to it.. big motors spinning fast & built to the same specs as a small motor spinning fast will spill its guts much sooner than the small one.


btw.... 4 cylinder honda motors don't have the technology in the materials they're built from that the nascar motors do... and its not so much displacement as it is the dimensions of the motor big bore is fine big stroke is bad for revving high; too much piston speed too much inertia.


[Edited on December 25, 2005 at 8:07 PM. Reason : .]

12/25/2005 8:03:54 PM

I didn't say anything about any of this stuff being the same or different animals. I was just pointing out that you can't make such a generalization as you did. I see that you have basically said about the same thing I said in my previous post. I have seen NASCAR engines and know one of the engine guys at RCR; I know more than you think. You still missed my point of you over generalizing engines on size, rpm, and the relation of both with torque.

Detonation in a diesel is not the same animal as detonation in a spark ignition enigne and is not the reason diesels are built heavier and stronger - period, end of story. Detonation in spark ignition is during the compression stroke, putting more stress on the piston face, wrist pin, rod, crank and the associated bearings since it is resisting engine rotation. Diesels detonation is timed to occur just before TDC so that the force of the combustion begins pressing on the piston at TDC, and injection/combustion/detonation extends into the expansion stroke. If the ignition delay is shortened in a diesel, the same thing happens as in a spark ignition engine, and will cause the same damage, no matter how heavily built the engine is. The newer diesels are quieter because they are direct injection, high pressure, and electronically controlled, which usually allows for pilot injection, which further quiets the engines.

"Diesels don't detonate as much" - and how do you propose that these new diesel engines run? Spark plugs? No. They still rely on the auto-ignition of the fuel in hot, highly compressed air. The duramax is a bad example because it is a pile of crap. A friend owns a machine shop and he's done more work on Duramax heads than any other diesel.

Boosted engines do act like larger engines because the boost increases volumeteric efficiency. Again, you miss my point. You say diesels are bigger, boosted, and make more torque so they have to be heavy. Diesels are low revving simply due to the combustion cycle and limitations of injection timing. Size does play a part, but not as much so in the A10 as the combustion process.

A big engine built to the same specs as a small engine in what respect? That all seems very relative to me.

12/26/2005 11:23:09 PM

Quote :

"pistons and rods have linear acceleration that never stops (alternates direction) and the crank has centripital acceleration."

i stopped reading after this.

12/27/2005 12:28:15 AM