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Motivated by the demand for the reduction of fuel consumption, in particular to meet the engine energy efficiency goals of the Brazilian incentives legislation (INOVAR AUTO), this paper proposes a method to identify potential for energy efficiency and exemplifies it through three engines of the Brazilian market. The proposed method consists in identify the engine losses in different operating points (speed x load) through combustion mapping and the basic formulations which describe the energy/losses share. These data are grouped into 12 map sections, allowing the identification of the ones with more improvement potential. The baseline engine is 1.6 l naturally aspirated, port injection and was tested with E100 fuel (100% Ethanol). Engine #2 is similar to the baseline but with 4 valves per cylinder and a lower viscosity oil. The engine #3 is a more advanced engine: turbo charged, direct fuel injection, variable valve train and piloted pumps.

This work compares the typical manufacturing process of cast iron piston rings with chromium or molybdenum coating with the more recent nitriding steel process. Environmental impact of the processes is estimated by their material losses, consumption of energy and hazardous waste. Despite all technological development, the nowadays production process of a typical piston ring still implies that the finished part has only 30% of the iron initially cast. A more recent design, nitrided steel piston ring, reduces substantially material losses during the part manufacturing. It also substitutes high polluter processes as chromium plating or metal spray for the lower polluter gas nitriding. Production of Nitrided Steel Rings (NSR) uses 40% less energy, needs 78% less raw material and produces almost 10 times less hazardous waste. NSR has significant lower environmental impact in comparison with the traditional Coated Iron Ring (CIR). NSR also has environmental advantages during use.