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The University of Wisconsin-Madison Snowmobile Team designed and constructed a hybrid-electric snowmobile for the 2005 Society of Automotive Engineers' Clean Snowmobile Challenge. Built on a 2003 cross-country touring chassis, this machine features a 784 cc fuel-injected four-stroke engine in parallel with a 48 V electric golf cart motor. The 12 kg electric motor increases powertrain torque up to 25% during acceleration and recharges the snowmobile's battery pack during steady-state operation. Air pollution from the gasoline engine is reduced to levels far below current best available technology in the snowmobile industry. The four-stroke engine's closed-loop EFI system maintains stoichiometric combustion while dual three-way catalysts reduce NOx, HC and CO emissions by up to 94% from stock. In addition to the use of three way catalysts, the fuel injection strategy has been modified to further reduce engine emissions from the levels measured in the CSC 2004 competition.

This research focused on the effects of split injection on combustion in a diesel environment. It was done in a specially designed engine-fed combustion chamber (swirl ratio of 5) with full field optical access through a quartz window. The simulated engine combustion chamber used a special backwards spraying injector (105°). The electronically controlled injector could control the size and position of it's, two injections. Both injections were through the same nozzle and it produced very rapid injections (1.5 ms) with a maximum injection pressure of 130 MPa. Experimental data included: rate of injection, injector pressure, combustion chamber dumping (NO & NOx concentrations), flame temperature, KL factor (soot concentration) combustion pressure, and rate of pressure rise. Injection rates indicate that the UCORS injection system creates very rapid injections with the ability to produce controllable split injections.

This research focused on the effects of split injection on fuel spray behavior in a diesel environment. It was done in a special designed engine-fed combustion chamber (swirl ratio of 5) with full field optical access through a quartz window. The simulated engine combustion chamber used a special backwards spraying injector (105°). The electronically controlled injector could control the size and position of it's two injections. Both injections were through the same nozzle and it produced very rapid injections (1.5 ms) with a maximum injection pressure of 130 MPa. Experimental data included: rate of injection, injector pressure, spray plume images, tip penetration, liquid and vapor fuel distributions, combustion pressure, and rate of pressure rise. From 105° forward scatter images, tip penetration was observed to be very rapid and reached a plateau at 25 mm.

The University of Wisconsin - Madison FutureCar Team has designed and built a lightweight, charge sustaining, parallel hybrid-electric vehicle for entry into the 1999 FutureCar Challenge. The base vehicle is a 1994 Mercury Sable Aluminum Intensive Vehicle (AIV), nicknamed the “Aluminum Cow,” weighing 1275 kg. The vehicle utilizes a high efficiency, Ford 1.8 liter, turbo-charged, direct-injection compression ignition engine. The goal is to achieve a combined FTP cycle fuel economy of 23.9 km/L (56 mpg) with California ULEV emissions levels while maintaining the full passenger/cargo room, appearance, and feel of a full-size car. Strategies to reduce the overall vehicle weight are discussed in detail. Dynamometer and experimental testing is used to verify performance gains.

The University of Wisconsin - Madison Clean Snowmobile team has designed, constructed and now refined an electric snowmobile with 40 km (24 mi) range and acceleration comparable to a 75 kW (100 hp) internal-combustion-powered snowmobile. Starting with a Polaris IQ Fusion chassis, a direct-drive chain-case was engineered to couple a General Motors EV1 copper-bar rotor AC induction electric motor to the track drive shaft. The battery pack uses 104 28 V, 2.8 A-hr Lithium-Ion battery modules supplied by Milwaukee Tool to store 8.2 kW-hr of energy at a nominal voltage of 364 V. Power is transmitted to the electric motor via an Azure Dynamics DMOC445LLC motor controller. All of the components fit within the original sled envelope, leading to a vehicle with conventional appearance and a total mass of 313 kg (690 lb). The vehicle, dubbed the BuckEV, accelerates to 150 m (500 ft) in 6.9 seconds and has a top speed of 122 km/hr (76 mph) with a pass-by sound level of 55 dB.

The effect of low level ethanol fuel on the power and emissions characteristics was studied in a small, mass produced, carbureted, spark-ignited, Briggs and Stratton Vanguard 19L2 engine. Ethanol has been shown to be an attractive renewable fuel by the automotive industry; having anti-knock properties, potential power benefits, and emissions reduction benefits. With increasing availability and the possible mandates of higher ethanol content in pump gasoline, there is interest in exploring the effect of using higher content ethanol fuels in the small utility engine market. The fuels in this study were prepared by gravimetrically mixing 98.7% ethanol with a balance of 87 octane no-ethanol gasoline in approximately 5% increments from pure gasoline to 25% ethanol. Alcor Petrolab performed fuel analysis on the blended fuels and determined the actual volumetric ethanol content was within 2%.