Could a gasoline engine outperform diesels?
The concept that explained the better efficiency of diesel engines was “thermal efficiency.” This is also the concept that a prototype originally developed at Coventry University uses to claim that a 2.0-liter MUSIC (Merritt Unthrottled Spark Ignition Combustion) gasoline engine achieved more efficiency than a 2.4 liter diesel engine. For those unfamiliar with MUSIC engines, they are un-throttled, with high thermal efficiency, lean-burn, and work with a spark ignition system that uses an indirect combustion chamber to produce charge stratification by means of controlled air management. The tested engine was simply a new cylinder head mounted over a standard Duratec engine.
