More than 1100 Newton Meters


The heart of the Audi R10 is a completely new V12 TDI engine with a cubic capacity of 5.5 litres – the maximum permitted at Le Mans. Audi ventures into previously unexplored diesel-engine terrain with power exceeding 650 hp and torque of more than 1100 Newton metres from the V12 power plant.

“This engine is the specifically most powerful diesel there is in the world and, up until now, the biggest challenge that Audi Sport has ever faced in its long history,” explains Ulrich Baretzky, Head of Engine Technology at Audi Sport. “There has never been anything remotely comparable. We started development with a clean sheet of paper.”

The V12 TDI used in the R10 is the first Audi diesel engine with an aluminium crank case. The cylinder-bank angle is 90 degrees. The V12 TDI has, like Audi production car engines, four valves per cylinder and twin overhead camshafts. The fuel induction is made by a modern “Common Rail System”. The injection pressure easily exceeds the 1600 bar achieved in production cars. The ignition pressures also reach values never previously seen in any Audi engine.

The engine’s power and the high torque are available to the driver practically from idling speed – a speciality of diesel technology, to which the Audi drivers must now become accustomed. The usable power band lies between 3000 and 5000 revs per minute.

Inside the V12 TDI, the extremely high pressures in particular create forces never seen before in a racing engine. However, the main target of the Audi technicians is to reach the reliability level of the R8, which never recorded a single engine failure in the 77 races it has contested to date.

 

I wonder how bad the smoke screen will be