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A new generation 3.0 liter V6 engine, the 1MZ-FE, has been developed. Through improvement of the basic technical characteristics of each individual component, the 1MZ-FE has achieved compactness, weight reduction and good fuel economy without adding systems or components. This new engine makes use of an aluminum cylinder block, and compared with the previous V6 engine, significant weight reduction of the crankshaft, connecting rods and pistons was achieved while still maintaining a high level of rigidity. To improve fuel economy, friction loss was reduced substantially by reducing the weight of moving parts and improving the surface roughness of sliding parts. The combustion was also improved through better fuel atomization by the air-assisted fuel injector and modification of the combustion chamber shape. Through these improvements the 1MZ-FE has achieved a weight reduction of approximately 20% and far greater vehicle fuel economy than before.

The advantages of gasoline direct-injection are intake air cooling due to fuel vaporization which reduces knocking, additional degrees of freedom in designing a stratified injection mixture, and capability for retarded ignition timing which shortens catalyst light-off time. Stratified mixture combustion designs often require complicated piston shapes which disturb the fluid flow in the cylinder, leading to power reduction, especially in turbocharged gasoline direct-injection engines. Our research replaced the conventional shell-type shallow cavity piston with a dog dish-type curved piston that includes a small lip to facilitate stratification and minimize flow disturbance. As a result, stable stratified combustion and increased power were both achieved.

T-LCS (TOYOTA LEAN COMBUSTION SYSTEM ) has made the engine possible to be operated with very lean mixture over 22 of air-fuel ratio, and achieved the NOx reduction and the improvement of fuel economy. This system has two features, one of which is the feed-back control of lean mixture strength using the LEAN MIXTURE SENSOR that has been newly developed. The other feature is the improved combustion through the SWIRL CONTROL VALVE and individual timing control of fuel injection for each cylinder. The influence of the test patterns, the vehicle weight and the air-fuel ratio on the exhaust emissions of lean combustion system has been examined and the results are reported in this paper.

This paper describes the development of the electrical systems for the integrated control system which unified automobile electronic control systems and led to a dramatic improvement in vehicle dynamics. An outline of the system is presented first, followed by actual automobile application examples of electrical systems employing medium-speed multiplexing.

In order to reduce tail-pipe hydrocarbon emissions from SI gasoline engines, rapid catalyst warm-up and improvement of catalyst conversion efficiency are important. There are many reports which have been published by manufacturers and research institutes on this issue. For further reduction of tail-pipe hydrocarbon emissions, it is necessary to reduce engine-out hydrocarbon emissions and to improve after treatment, during the time the catalyst is not activated. This paper quantitatively analyzed the fuel amount of intake port and cylinder wall-wetting, burned fuel and engine-out hydrocarbon emissions, cycle by cycle in firing condition, utilizing a specially designed analytical engine. The effect of mixture preparation and fuel properties for engine-out hydrocarbon emissions, during the cold engine start and warm-up period, were quantitatively clarified.

Quality control of gasoline constituents and its effect on the Intake Valve Deposits (IVD) has become a recent issue. In this paper, the effects of gasoline and oil quality on intake valve deposits were investigated using an Intake Valve Deposit Test Bench and a Sludge Simulator. The deposit formation from the gasoline maximized at an intake valve temperature of approximately 160 °C, and the deposits formed from the engine oil were maximum at approximately 250 °C. Therefore, the contribution of the gasoline or the engine oil appears to depend on the engine conditions. The gasoline which contains MTBE or ethanol with no detergent additive slightly increases the deposition amount. The gasoline with a superior detergent significantly decreases the deposition amount even when MTBE or ethanol is blended in the gasoline. Appropriate detergent fuel additive retards the oil deterioration.

The authors have developed a measurement technique using a new digital telemeter which measures the piston secondary motion as ensuring high accuracy while under the operation. We applied this new digital telemeter to several measurements and analysis on the piston secondary motion that can cause piston noises, and here are some of the results from our measurement. We have confirmed that these piston motions vary by only several tenths of millimeter changes of the piston specifications such as the piston-pin offset and the center of gravity of the piston. As in other cases, we have found that a mere change of pressure in the crankcase or the amount of lubricating oil supplied on the cylinder bore varies the piston motion that may give effect on the piston noises.

An all aluminum cylinder block with a Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) cylinder bore was developed which made it possible to re-design the base engine for high performance with a bore-to-bore distance as narrow as 5.5mm. The cylinder block is an open deck type and the MMC preform consists of alumina-silica fibers and mulite particles. A laminar flow die cast process was selected to ensure defect-free MMC bore quality. To insure good lubrication, electrochemical machining was applied to the bore surface. By use of radioisotope(RI) measurements, MMC reinforcement was optimized for wear characteristics. Particular attention was paid to use of fuels with high sulfur levels.

Conventionally, sound insulation materials have been applied to control interior noise above 500 Hz, and damping materials to control interior noise below 500 Hz. In this paper, the noise control component for vehicle panels, which consists of damping material and sound insulation material, is investigated by using a two-degrees-of-freedom system. The investigation shows that sound insulation material can be effective in reducing interior noise below 500 Hz if its stiffness is reduced. This stiffness depends not only on the spring of the material itself but also on its pneumatic spring which is determined by air-flow resistance. This paper concludes with applications of techniques to reduce interior noise below 500 Hz by improving sound insulation materials.

The purposes of this paper are to develop a new laboratory oxidation stability testing method and to clarify factors relative to the viscosity increase of engine oil. Polymerized products, obtained from the oil after a JASO M333-93 engine test, were found to consist mainly of carboxyl, nitrate and nitro compounds and to increase the oil viscosity. A good similarity between the JASO M333-93 test and the laboratory simulation test was found for the polymerized products. The products were obtained not by heating oil only in air but by heating oil while supplying a synthetic blowby gas consisting of fuel pyrolysis products, NO, SO2 and air. The laboratory test has also revealed that the viscosity increase depends on oil quality, organic Fe content and hydrocarbon composition in the fuel. Moreover, it has been found that blowby gas and organic Fe accelerate ZnDTP consumption and that aromatics concentration in the fuel correlates with the viscosity increase of oil.

The authors have developed an intelligent four-wheel drive system (I-4WD) designed to distribute the driving force to the front and rear wheels at the optimum ratio according to the running condition of the vehicle. The I-4WD consists of a center differential which distributes 30 percent of the driving force to front wheels and 70 percent to rear wheels (30:70), a hydraulic multi-disk clutch, an electronic control unit and a hydraulic control circuit. The driving force distribution can be steplessly varied from 30:70 up to the rigid state by controlling the hydraulic pressure on the clutch. The main control algorithm is based on the“yaw velocity model following control.” This composition has allowed us to accurately balance the cornering performance and stability without spoiling the critical limit predictability which is that the driver knows in advance the critical limit of vehicle dynamics.

We adopted the active hydropneumatic suspension and the dual-mode 4WS system for the 1989 Toyota CELICA. The active control suspension system detects the vehicle state with various sensors to control the oil pressure in the hydraulic cylinder with the linear pressure control valve; controlling attitude, ride comfort, stability & controllability and three-level vehicle height. The 4WS system continuously changes the steering angle ratio between the front and rear wheel according to the vehicle speed, decreasing the minimum turning radius at a low speed by 0.5 m and improving the controllability at a medium speed and the stability at a high speed. In addition, we further improved the performance of each system by integrally controlling the active control suspension system and the 4WS system. Thus, we succeeded in improving the total performance of vehicle dynamics by adding ABS to these systems to control the vertical, lateral and longitudinal accelerations.

Through several experiences on the development of high performance 4-valve engines for sporty passenger cars, Toyota has found another way to apply its benefits for standard engines. The main benefits are, high volumetric efficiency, low friction loss and fast burn by a central spark plug; all of which are no doubt available for standard engines as well. At the same time Toyota notices that careful attention should be paid to the idea of making the engine torque curve higher in the low and middle speed ranges instead of only high horsepower in the high speed range. As a result of numerous schematic studies including 3-valve layouts, three important factors such as 4-valve combustion chamber having a narrow valve angle, a valve gear composed of double camshafts and direct acting tappet with ‘no’ hydraulic valve lash adjuster were finally selected. This combustion chamber gives a compact cylinder head similar to that of a SOHC.

Vehicle body movements that occur during cornering have a strong influence on the evaluation of ride and handling. As a first step, we analyze subjective comments from trained drivers and find that the sense of vision played a major part in cornering feel. As a result of quantitative evaluations, we hypothesize that smaller time lag between roll angle and pitch angle made cornering feel better. We perform a human sensitivity evaluation, which confirmed this hypothesis. Given this result, we derive analytical equations for the roll center kinematics and the damping characteristics, in order to find a theoretical condition for the time lag of 0sec (giving a good cornering feel). We verify this by experiment.

The adaptation of an active control suspension has remarkably improved the vehicle attitude and ride comfort characteristics. Such an active controlled suspension is controlled by actuators and hydro-dynamic equipments like servo valves. The control strategies are composed of feedback control with each cylinder oil pressure, suspension stroke and velocity. In the practical application of these systems, it must be taken into account that the effect of control is much dependent on the time delay of a controller as well as control elements. The object of this study is to confirm preview effects on the response of the system. The aim of preview feedforward control is to compensate the system delay of active control suspension. The control system is constructed of an ordinary feedback loop and a feedforward loop based on a road preview signal.

The authors developed a high-reliability low-cost gold-plated connector for automobiles. The connector is covered with three plated layers, nickel, palladium-nickel alloy, and gold. The three-layer plating helps to reduce the required thickness of gold. This paper describes the reasons why palladium-nickel plating was adopted and compares the corrosion resistance, oxidation resistance and wear resistance of three-layer-plated materials with those of conventional gold-plated materials. In addition, the characterisitics of three-layer-plated connectors were compared with those of conventional gold-plated connectors. It was found that the reliability of three-layer-plated connectors was as high as that of conventional gold-plated connectors.

Multi-cylinder hydrogen-absorbing alloy tanks for fuel cell vehicles have 10 to 40 metallic cylinders that are bundled and filled with hydrogen-absorbing alloy. In this system, the cylinders themselves act as a heat exchanger and the working pressure is lowered to 10 to 20 MPa compared with high-pressure MH tanks. Moreover, both heat conduction and mass reduction can be achieved by reducing the wall thickness of the cylinders. A model verification experiment was conducted using a one-quarter-scale prototype of a full size tank, and a conduction simulation model verified in the experiment was used to predict the performance of the full size tank. Results showed that it is possible to fill the tank with hydrogen to 80% of its capacity in a five-minute filling time, although issues related to heat conductivity performance require improvement. Accordingly, it may be possible to adopt this tank as part of a system if the storage amount of the hydrogen-absorbing alloy can be increased.

Vehicle rollovers are one of the more severe crash modes in the US - accounting for 32% of all passenger vehicle occupant fatalities annually. One design enhancement to help prevent rollovers is Electronic Stability Control (ESC) which can reduce loss of control and thus has great promise to enhance vehicle safety. The objectives of this research were (1) to estimate the effectiveness of ESC in reducing the number of rollover crashes and (2) to identify cases in which ESC did not prevent the rollover to potentially advance additional ESC development. All passenger vehicles and light trucks and vans that experienced a rollover from 2006 to 2015 in the National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Database System (NASS/CDS) were analyzed. Each rollover was assigned a crash scenario based on the crash type, pre-crash maneuver, and pre-crash events.

We have developed a vehicle test system called the Vehicle Dynamics Simulator (VDS). The system measures the handling characteristics in a transient state in the laboratory. The automobile suspensions are moved as on a road with the machine providing relative motion by force transducer platform beneath each tire. The detailed measurements of transitive motions and forces given to the wheel clarify the kinematics and compliance characteristics contributed to the good handling performance and stability. This paper presents the system introduction and the results of analyzing the suspensions characteristics by the new analytical technique for breaking down into a variety of compliance components in a transient state.

The hybrid system has the typical advantage that it can realize various types of system control, because the system has two power units, engine and motor. On the other hand, however, constraints are increasing due to the complexity of the vehicle system. Compared to the conventional HILS construction and application, there are mainly two typical characteristics or themes for HV-HILS (i.e. HILS for hybrid vehicle control development). Firstly, HV-HILS requires full vehicle simulation environment, because the plural ECU control logic is intricately intertwined. Secondly, recent HILS system needs to run with more accurate or complicated plant models which are necessary to develop more accurate vehicle control logic.