New Heart for the BMW

BMW Asia announced the impending arrival of the new generation TwinPower Turbo petrol engine to Singapore. In sync with BMW’s overall strategy in extending its Efficient Dynamics portfolio, this will be the first time that the new generation four-cylinder engines are fitted with BMW TwinPower Turbo technology which significantly increases output while maintaining exceptional fuel efficiency.

This four-cylinder engine is further derived from the multi-award winning straight six-cylinder petrol engine with BMW TwinPower Turbo technology used on the BMW 535i.

The turbocharger is a Twin Scroll system. The exhaust streams leaving the two pairs of cylinders are kept completely separate as they flow through the exhaust manifold and the turbocharger, taking a spiral path to the turbine wheel. This configuration results in very low exhaust backpressure at low engine rpm, and allows the energy of the exhaust gas pulses to be optimally managed and translated into powerful rotation of the turbine blades, without a response delay. This leads to an immediate response to each movement of the accelerator pedal and the high-revving characteristics so typical of BMW engines.

In normally aspirated engines, responsiveness could only be enhanced to the same degree by significantly increasing capacity, and therefore weight and fuel consumption. The design draws on the BMW engineers’ long experience of building high-performance turbo engines. The BMW 2002 turbo, launched in 1973 with a four-cylinder, 170hp engine, was the first European production car to be fitted with an exhaust gas turbocharger, and is still regarded as the template for a compact, high-performance driver’s car. In 1983, the first turbocharged engine to win a Formula 1 world championship was Brabham BMW driven by Nelson Piquet.

The expansion of the Efficient Dynamics portfolio is a commitment to sustainability, which in turn is a long-term company strategy of the BMW Group. In 2011, for the seventh time in a row, the BMW Group is named the most sustainable automobile manufacturer in the world by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

Credits: wilswong