Michael Taylor•10 Mar 2014
NEWS
Power politics at Audi
Eichler's TT Quattro Sport Concept engine easily topples the A 45 AMG as the strongest four-pot aroundThe Volkswagen Group’s key engineering convert has just toppled his own masterpiece, producing more than 300kW from a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engine in the TT Quattro Sport concept.
Engine development boss Freidrich Eichler had threatened to rewrite the rules of high-powered four pots, but it’s doubtful even hardened industry insiders believed just how much ink the German would be using.
As prophesised here at Motoring.com.au months ago, the four-cylinder motor will thump out a V8-beating 309kW of power and 420Nm of torque from just two litres, delivering a specific power output of more than 200 horsepower per litre.
Audi is claiming a 0-100km/h time of just 3.7 seconds for the TT Quattro Sport concept, powered by an engine based on the existing EA888 block found scattered throughout the VW Group ranges.
It means Eichler’s new engine has his old engine, the 2.0-litre, turbo four he engineered for the A 45 and CLA 45 in his previous position at AMG, covered by almost 60 horsepower. It’s also 92kW more power than the current S3 delivers out of the same engine block, while it outstrips the outgoing TT RS Plus’s five-cylinder turbo engine by 44kW.
Besides the enormous power, though, the Sport concept is also a car custom designed to give Audi a platform to show off the engine, which is an indication of the growing power of Audi (and former Volkswagen) engineering boss, Dr Ulrich Hackenberg within the VW Group. There was a large faction pushing for the engine to debut in a Volkswagen-branded car, but such is the political muscle of Hackenberg that it was squeezed into the prestige brand first.
“With our Audi TT quattro Sport concept show car, we wanted to demonstrate what the new TT’s technology can do if you take it a step further, Dr Hackenberg said.
“This car is designed for racing – an extreme driving machine for the motorsports enthusiasts among our customers.”
In other words, it serves no mainstream marketing or positioning role for the all-new TT, except for giving Audi somewhere to unveil this engine.
Still, there are positives for Volkswagen fans, as Eichler explained.
“Unlike the A 45, it will be able to use all of its torque in first gear because of the DSG gearbox, it’s going to get to 100km/h consistently.
“The beauty of it is that it fits the MQB architecture, so it can go in any small car from all the brands,” he insisted.
The Sport concept is based around the all-new TT, which received some criticism in Geneva for its moderately evolutionary exterior design and is built on the VW Group’s MQB architecture, so it shares its underpants with the A3 and VW Golf.
Dr Hackenberg was insistent there was no technical impediment to stop the new engine reaching production with the same power and torque outputs, even though it shares its engine block with the standard 2.0-litre EA888.
Its relatively low torque peak has a wide spread, arriving at 2400 and remaining until 6300rpm, though there is at least 300Nm available from 1900rpm. Its power peak arrives at 6700rpm, thanks to a combination of direct and indirect fuel injection, variable valve timing and lift, plus a thumping big turbocharger.
Audi has mated the 150kg engine to an all-wheel drive powertrain and the entire car weighs 1344kg.
“This is an impressive demonstration of the power reserves available in our EA888 engine range,” Audi’s head of powertrain development, Dr Stefan Knirsch, said.
It has required a lot of work, though, and bears only a passing resemblance to the standard unit. Internals include special custom aluminium pistons, complete with integrated cooling channels, and an ultra-high strength crankshaft.
Most of the developments have been in the cylinder head, where an almost-all new unit was designed to cope with the higher gas flows, while the crankcase is now made in high-strength cast alloy. Its turbocharger forces air into the engine at up to 1.8 bar of atmospheric pressure, all the way to its rev limit at 7200rpm.
It tries to stay on the road via the Haldex V all-wheel drive system coupled to a four-link rear suspension – the highest specification of the MQB architecture in the Group.
While Audi admits it still carries 54 percent of its mass over the front axle, it counters with far stiffer springs and dampers, along with some hybridisation of aluminium spaceframe technology to push more weight to the rear and to lower the centre of gravity.
Sitting on 20-inch, centre-lock alloys, the quattro Sport concept features a pronounced carbon-fibre splitter and wheel arches that add another 30mm to the standard car’s width specification.
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Written byMichael Taylor
Our team of independent expert car reviewers and journalists
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