Beginning this month, Ford will produce a dedicated 2.2-liter commercial diesel engine optimized for durability and ruggedness for the Ford Transit, and for PSA Peugeot Citroën’s new LCVs from its advanced Dagenham engine plant in Essex.

Starting in January 2006, PSA Peugeot Citroën will produce a 2.2-liter premium, high-output diesel engine for both companies’ medium/large and executive models from its Trémery plant, Moselle France. The Trémery plant is the world’s largest diesel engine facility.

Each company will produce their versions of the 2.2-liter engine at the rate of up to 200,000 units per year.

Both advanced common rail diesel engines feature a number of technical innovations.

The Light Commercial Vehicle Diesel. The LCV 2.2-liter diesel engine features smart injection management technology which allows it to constantly adjust itself for maximum efficiency during the life of the engine.

All versions of this engine are 2,198cc in displacement, dual overhead camshaft (DOHC), four cylinders in-line with four valves per cylinder head (16 valves in total). The engines feature high grade aluminium alloy cylinder heads with an iron cylinder block.

The engine will be offered in five configurations: 84 hp (63 kW) (torque: 250Nm); 99 hp (74 kW) (torque: 250Nm); 108 hp (81 kW) (torque: 285Nm); 118 hp (88 kW) (torque: 320Nm); and 128 hp (96 kW) (torque: 310Nm).

The new engine employs the latest generation common-rail direct injection system, which has ensured the engine family meets Euro 4 compliance and further improves reliability.

The fuel injection system has an innovative pilot learning process. This intelligent process guarantees that the small pilot injection quantity so critical to low noise and emissions on modern high pressure common-rail engines, is delivered accurately across all cylinders for the life of the vehicle.

This level of control is achieved by periodically injecting five discrete injection events per cycle instead of the normal pilot and main injections. The engine management system then compares the engine operation and will fractionally adjust the pilot quantity to minimise noise and emissions.

The high pressure fuel injection system used ensures fuel is available at high pressure at each cylinder injection point. At critical points of the engine stroke, the electronic control of the injector valves allows very fine jets of fuel to be sprayed into the combustion chamber. This makes the combustion process clean and efficient, thus lowering emissions, improving fuel economy and increasing torque on each firing of the cylinder.

Another feature which helps reduce NO_x emissions is a high-flow, electronically controlled Exhaust Gas Recirculation (e-EGR) system which reduces combustion temperatures, and is mapped to the operating conditions of the engine and cooled by a water-based heat exchanger. The electronic system allows better controllability, lower and more consistent emissions, and complete elimination of black smoke.

The e-EGR incorporates an anti-contamination system, which uses smart electronics to monitor the engine’s efficiency and to correct itself when necessary. The e-EGR can carry out this process regardless of the driving cycle of the vehicle, and ensures robustness regardless of how the vehicle is used.

For power improvement, the entry- and mid-level engines use a fixed geometry turbocharger, while the higher powered engines rely on a variable geometry turbo.

Using a fixed geometry turbocharger will allow both Ford of Europe and PSA Peugeot Citroën to offer a highly competitive entry point for their commercial vehicle ranges.

The variable geometry system offers greater torque at lower speeds, while the turbo adapts to the needs and driving characteristics of the driver. This is achieved by the electronic control of the vane angles of the turbocharger, as it allows accurate control of boost pressure over a wider operating range. The electric control ensures greater responsiveness and improved and more accurate boost control than before.

The medium- and high-power engines employ gallery-cooled pistons to cope with the higher power density.

The new 2.2-liter LCV engine meets Euro 4 emissions requirements (mandatory for light trucks in 2006). It produces just half the amount of NO_x emissions compared with the engine from which it was developed, reduces CO₂ emissions by 20% and PM emissions by 40%.

The HDi/TDCi premium diesel. Ford and PSA designed the new 2.2-liter premium diesel engine to match the performance of the best 2.5-liter diesels on the market, combined with superior environmental performance (complying with Euro IV emission standards and being equipped with a particulate filter), enhanced fuel efficiency and lower CO₂ emissions.

The HDi/TDCi 2.2-litre engine uses a new Extreme Conventional Combustion System (ECCS) combustion chamber that reduces emissions of regulated pollutants at source by 30% while improving performance and reducing running noise. This combustion chamber has a large diameter and low compression ratio, which produces a more uniform air/fuel mix.

The size of the combustion chamber limits the amount of fuel in contact with the walls, thereby ensuring that fuel combustion is more efficient. Piston geometry and design have been tailored to create a 25% larger diameter combustion chamber compared with the previous engine generation. The use of aluminium with very high mechanical and thermal properties is a key feature to achieve such a piston design.

The special geometry also significantly reduced swirl in the combustion chamber, thereby reducing heat loss to the walls and improving the engine’s efficiency. As a result, fuel efficiency under all driving conditions has been improved by 2% compared to the previous generation, meanwhile the driveability offered has increased sharply by 25%.

The combustion system is combined with an all-new Bosch third-generation common-rail 1,800-bar injection system—an increase of 33% over the first generation’s 1,350 bar.

The high injection pressure and the new Bosch piezoelectric injectors with seven 135 µm nozzles—compared with five in the first generation—enable up to six injections per engine cycle, thereby making fuel injection more precise and improving injection duration.

This in turn enhances management of the introduction rate, or the ratio of the amount of diesel injected to the injection duration. The injection spray is finer, which reduces emissions, since the air/diesel mix is even more uniform.

The dual turbo

To enhance power, the engine uses a parallel sequential dual turbo—a first for a four-cylinder diesel.

A small, low-inertia turbo provides effective boosting even at low engine speed. A second turbo of the same size kicks in at 2,700 rpm. Both turbos are fully managed by the engine management system.

Ford, PSA and Honeywell Turbo Technology have filed five patents for this technology, which makes torque available at low revs and responds immediately when the turbo comes on line.

The maximum torque of 400 Nm is reached at 1,750 rpm. A third-generation electrically controlled variable geometry turbo was also developed for applications which do not require the bi-turbo ultimate boost at low engine speed. Electrical control enables precise, fast management of the turbo’s variable geometry to optimize boost pressure at each engine operating point.

Previous phases in the Ford-PSA partnership were:

• Phase 1. Development of the 1.4-liter (1,399cc) common-rail turbo-diesel engine used by Ford in the Fiesta and Fusion, by Peugeot initially in the 206 and later in the 307 and by Citroën in the C2 and C3. This was first announced in 2001. A 1.6-liter (1,590cc) common-rail diesel engine was also part of the Phase 1 announcement and, together with the 1.4-liter variant, is now used in a wide variety of Ford Motor Company and PSA Peugeot Citroën applications.

• Phase 2. Development of a 2.0-liter (1,998cc), four-cylinder common-rail turbo-diesel 16-valve unit, announced in early 2003 and also used in a wide variety of Ford Motor Company and PSA Peugeot Citroën applications.

• Phase 3. While the first two phases of the project were led by PSA Peugeot Citroën, Phase 3 was led by Ford Motor Company. This was the production of a high-performance V6 six-cylinder 24-valve unit, announced in June 2003. The first product to benefit from this engine was the Jaguar S-Type, followed by the Peugeot 607. Since then, it has also been installed in the Land Rover Discovery, Range Rover Sport and the new Jaguar XJ and will be fitted in the Peugeot 407 Coupe and the Citroën C6 when both cars are launched on the market.

Together, Ford Motor Company and PSA Peugeot Citroën are the world’s leading diesel engine makers.