Mazda's SISS: A Big deal

Here's a snippet from Nihon Car discussing Mazda's new system:

Conventional idling stop systems restart a vehicle's engine with an electric motor using exactly the same process as when the engine is started normally. Mazda's SISS, on the other hand, restarts the engine through combustion. Mazda's system initiates engine restart by injecting fuel directly into the cylinder while the engine is stopped, and igniting it to generate downward piston force.

In order to restart the engine by combustion, the pistons must be stopped at exactly the correct position to create the right balance of air volume in each cylinder. The Smart Idle Stop System provides precise control over the piston positions during engine shutdown to accomplish this. The SISS indexes each cylinder and initiates fuel injection before the engine begins to rotate. This enables the engine to be restarted in just 0.35 seconds*2, roughly half the time of a conventional electric motor idling stop system.

Wow. This sounds too good to be true--but it's very real and is ready to roll out to the world in 2009. Take heed--as complex as it sounds, this is certainly a great step towards harnessing better fuel economy and the travails of gridlock.

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