This was taken off another forum I belong to. I was talking about how far diesels have progressed, and another forum member followed up with this:
Not just diesels, but gas also.
High-pressure direct injection and high-boost turbocharging may finally lead to two-stroke gasoline engines becoming practical since unburned fuel will not be sent down the exhaust. And if workable, eliminating valves from the head may permit variable compression ratio engines to finally become a reality.
The recently announced Lotus approach to achieve variable compression ratio using a two-stroke engine is incredibly simple compared to anything I’ve seen (and engineers have been trying for almost a century). I hope they can make it work so it becomes as common as variable valve timing – which also took a long time to perfect.
With DI, turbocharging, two-stroke, and variable compression future engines could become much smaller, lighter, more powerful, and more fuel efficient. Who knows, some day we may be able to run both gasoline and diesel in the same engine.
A clean-burning two-stroke car engine would be very cool. I saw a two-stroke RZ-350 on the road Saturday, and while I have a huge soft spot in my heart for those engines, they're nastier than lawn mowers and chainsaws.
So, to have a cleaner two-stroke would definitely get my attention.
