At the end of the last article in this series (see
Our Peugeot Diesel – Part 3) we looked at the chassis dyno curve for
the later model 406 diesel (that’s the one with the bigger engine and vastly
more sophisticated electronic injection system) and concluded that if turbo
boost could be brought up much earlier, the 1.9 litre diesel in the 405 wouldn’t
be far behind the 406’s engine. In fact not far behind at all... And the obvious
answer to achieving better low-rev boost is to use a more sophisticated boost
control.
Trouble is, that’s harder to implement than it is
to write.
Adjusting Boost
There’s nothing particularly difficult about
tweaking turbo boost on a diesel engine. Those that don’t use variable geometry
turbos have traditional wastegate controls just like petrol turbo engines.
(Variable geometry turbos can use an electric motor control of the variable vane
angles.) And, since our Peugeot 405 diesel is 1990s vintage, adjusting the boost
should be easy, right? Huh!
Well, as you might have gathered from this
slightly embittered discourse, the Peugeot wastegate isn’t anything like I’ve
been describing. Well, it might actually be – it’s just bloody impossible to
see. The turbo is tucked up behind the engine against the firewall. The
transverse engine leans back at such an angle that you can’t look down at the
back of the engine and see the turbo; even if you take off the top-mount
intercooler, all is still invisible. Instead, to see the turbo, you need to jack
up the car, take off the front-right wheel, and then peer in, lying half under
the car.
And even then all you’ll see is the compressor
cover and a strange-looking wastegate housing. I assume that there is a boost
pressure feed, but it is completely impossible to see without taking the engine
out of the car (or perhaps taking off the intercooler and then the intake
manifold – this engine is a non-crossflow design). Instead, what can be sighted
are a lock nut and an adjusting screw. I can’t even show you a pic – it simply
can’t be seen sufficiently to take a photo. However, the 306 diesel, which uses
the same engine, has a turbo that is much more accessible – you can see some
pics of the area here
www.club-306.com
After I saw how hard everything was to access, I
quickly changed my mind away from fitting an external boost controller to
instead adjusting the factory boost control. And even then, I initially found it
impossible to access the wastegate pressure canister.
In the end I assembled:
A 2.5mm Allen key...
...and an 8mm deep cocket (a normal socket was no
good)...
...and a bendy extension...
...followed by another extension...
...turned by a T handle.
The long extension and 8mm deep socket allowed the
lock-nut to be undone. The Allen key was then able to be manoeuvred into place
(using the finger tips of both hands) and then painstakingly turned. I am now an
expert - but it’s still a prick of a job.
I went through all this rigmarole, turning the
wastegate adjuster clockwise by two turns. I then put the road wheel back on,
dropped the car back down and went for a drive.
There was little of no difference in the peak
boost.
I then jacked the car up, took off the wheel, did
the rigmarole again.
There was little change in boost.
Really enjoying all this process (not!) I screwed
the adjustment clockwise as far as it would go and then went testing.
On this car at least, screwing the adjustment
fully in gave a peak boost in normal driving of about 17.5 psi (up from about 12
psi) but under very long periods of load (eg climbing a hill) at full throttle
this could rise to about 19.5 psi. (Note: measurements are being taken in front
of the intercooler; the pressure drop across the intercooler is currently
unknown but you can be sure that there is some.)
So did the car now go really hard? The answer is
very interesting: performance, while better, wasn’t hugely improved. Clearly,
the fuelling wasn’t keeping up with the boost. Last story we adjusted the rev
limiter and the full load fuelling, but to get better results it was by now
obvious that we’d have to develop a much better understanding of the fuel system
and its adjustments.
Diesels
and boost
Now,
here’s where is starts getting interesting – and quite diesel-specific.
As
I am sure you know, the turbo is powered by the heat energy in the exhaust
gases. A diesel’s variation in engine power is governed by how much fuel is
added. Therefore, it logically follows that, depending on the maximum wastegate
pressure selected, the maximum boost level may well be determined by the amount
of fuel being added. And, in the case of the Bosch system used on the Peugeot,
the amount of fuel added depends somewhat on the boost pressure level!
So
when setting up the boost, you pursue a circular sequence...
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Diesel Distributor-Type Fuel Systems
The fuel system used on the Peugeot consists of
just one mechanical assembly that’s connected to the injectors. This single
assembly pumps fuel from the tank, pressurises it hugely to the level required
to be injected under full cylinder compression, distributes the fuel to the
right injector at the right time, and apportions the correct amount of fuel for
the conditions.
The injectors can be thought of as simply dumb
pressure relief valves – if the pressure in the line to the injector rises
sufficiently, the injector opens and sprays a fine mist of fuel into the engine.
If the pressure drops, the injector shuts.
But the injection pump is not so dumb - it might
be just a mechanical system, but it’s beautifully developed and manufactured.
The fuel injection pump (which in distributor-type
systems is also the metering device) consists of four basic sections. The pump
is driven at camshaft speed, normally by the cam drive belt. The first section
is a vane pump (red) that draws fuel from the tank. Next there’s a gear (green)
that drives a mechanical governor (not shown - more on this in a moment) and
then a roller that drives a cam disc (both blue). The cam disc plate turns the
rotating motion of the input shaft into an alternating fore-aft and rotary motion. The fore-aft motion operates a plunger (purple) that provides
the ultra-high pressure needed for the direct (or indirect) injection of the
fuel, while the rotary motion distributes the pressurised fuel to the
appropriate injector.
So how is fuel quantity varied? Here’s where it
starts to get pretty interesting. The variation in fuel volume is achieved by
moving a collar (sometimes called a sleeve – shown above in yellow) along the
plunger. The further the collar is moved in one direction, the later the
injection pulse is cut off – resulting in more fuel getting to each injector.
The further the collar is moved in the other direction, the earlier the fuel is
cut off – resulting in less fuel getting to each cylinder.
OK, that’s all well and good – but the important
question becomes: what controls the position of the collar on the plunger? There
are two major inputs to the collar position. Firstly, a governor (spun by the
gear described above) applies a force to the collar. As the engine (and so the
pump) spins faster, the governor force supplies more fuel. If no other forces
were acting on the collar, the increase in fuel injected with revs would match
the engine’s requirements and maximum power would be developed right through the
rev range.
But max power all the time isn’t wanted, so
pulling the opposite way on the control collar is a spring connected to
the accelerator pedal. This spring pulls most strongly when you foot is
off the throttle – that is, it resists the movement of the collar caused by
the governor.
So the end result of the collar position – and so
the amount of fuel injected – is a tussle between the governor forces
(proportional to rpm) and accelerator pedal forces.
Now if you’ve been keeping up you’ll realise that
so far, the system knows nothing about turbo boost pressure. Imagine the fuel
injection system working with the accelerator flat to the floor- that is, the
increasing amount of fuel with revs is determined by the internal settings of
the fuel pump under the influence of the governor. The system works fine – but
not if we increase the airflow by (say) 50 per cent by using 9 psi of boost. And
the extra fuel can’t be added all the time because the engine might be at 4000
rpm, 9 psi boost – or alternatively, 4000 rpm, 0 psi boost. Or anywhere in
between. And remember, to make use of the extra airflow, we have to add the
extra fuel or no more power will be produced!
The way the extra on-boost fuel is added is by
means of a boost pressure compensator – a diaphragm that deflects with boost
pressure. This diagram works against a spring to operate a control rod (red).
The control rod assembly comprises a probe (green) bearing against a specially
shaped surface – the shape of the control rod provides appropriate increases in
fuel for a given boost diaphragm deflection.
Finally, a few other things to know:
Conclusion
So now we have the potential to make more boost
and have enough knowledge to start to tweak the fuel settings.
Next: making changes to the fuel pump settings.
The results were very interesting...
Fuel
Economy
The
raison d’etre of the Peugeot is fuel economy – as in, our goal is to
massively improve performance and driveability while impacting little or not all
on the fuel consumption achieved in normal driving. (Of course, cane it and
you’d expect fuel consumption to be much poorer than standard – and that’s fair
enough.)
So
what fuel consumption have we been getting?
Unfortunately,
as with any really economical cars without a digital fuel computer, that’s
harder than it seems to answer. The old fill-the-tank-and-count-the-kilometres
approach if of course still valid, but doing it in this way, the greater the
tank fill, the more accurate the final results. And, with a 70 litre tank, in
the Peugeot that means travelling more than 1000 kilometres...
However,
this is what was gained with the car standard. The first tankful was up and down
the steep mountain where I live, plus a little urban and some freeway. Over long
experience I have realised that this driving regime penalises small engine cars
- they have to work really hard climbing the big hill. So I was stunned to find
that the measured economy was 6.9 litres/100km (all these figures take into
account a slightly optimistic odometer).
We
then did a 700-odd kilometre country drive, two adults, one child and a fair
amount of luggage. The drive was done at the speed limits, with the air on for a
portion of the trip home. The result was 5.7 litres/100km.
The
final tank involved all the performance testing undertaken with the fitting of
the exhaust and intake, dyno runs, draining of fuel from the filter to remove
water, and up and down the hill and some freeway work. Again the result was 7.0
litres/100km.
So
to summarise, on a country drive the standard economy is in the high Fives,
while in my normal daily use it’s in the high Sixes / low Sevens. In the real
world, they’re excellent fuel economy figures for normal use in (what I at least
am happy to call) a small family car.
When
the modifications are complete, we’ll bring you the new economy figures.
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