Air Bypass Valve

Anti-Lag System, ALS, is a system used on mainly turbocharged racing and rally engines to eliminate turbo lag. It was used in the early days of turbocharging in F1 until fuel restrictions made its use unsuitable. more...

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Later it became a common feature in rally cars due to the mandated restrictors on the turbocharger inlet. Because of the pressure drop across the restriction, the pressure ratio for a given boost level is much higher and the turbocharger must spin a lot faster to produce the same boost as before. This increases turbo lag significantly compared to unrestricted turbochargers.

An ALS system requires an air bypass, and generally this is done in one of two ways. The first method is to use a throttle air bypass; this may be an external bypass valve or a solenoid valve which open up the throttle 12-20 degrees. This allows air to bypass the closed throttle and to reach the engine. The second method is to use a bypass valve which feed charge air directly to the exhaust manifold.

The throttle bypass/throttle solenoid system is combined with ignition retardation and slight fuel enrichment (mainly to provide cooling), typically ignition occur at 35-45° ATDC. This late ignition causes very little expansion of the gas in the cylinder; hence the pressure and temperature will still be very high when the exhaust valve opens. At the same time, the amount of torque delivered to the crankshaft will be very small (just enough to keep the engine running). The higher exhaust pressure and temperature combined with the increased mass flow is enough to keep the turbocharger spinning at high speed thus reducing lag. When the throttle is opened up again the ignition and fuel injection goes back to normal operation. Since many engine components are exposed to very high temperatures during ALS operation and also high pressure pulses, this kind of system is very hard on the engine and turbocharger. For the latter not only the high temperatures are a problem but also the uncontrolled turbo speeds which can quickly destroy the turbocharger. In most applications the ALS is automatically shut down when the coolant reaches a temperature of 110-115°C to prevent overheating.

An ALS system working with a bypass valve which feeds air directly to the exhaust system can be made more refined than the system described above. Some of the earliest systems of this type were used by Ferrari in F1. Another well-known application of this type of anti-lag system was in the WRC version of the 1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four (ST-205). Four brass tubes fed air from the turbocharger's Compressor Bypass Valve (CBV) to each of the exhaust manifold tracts, in order to provide the necessary air for the combustion of the fuel. The system was controlled by two pressure valves, operated by the ECU. Besides the racing version, the hardware of the anti-lag system was also installed in the 2500 "Group A homologation base WRC method car" street legal Celica GT-Fours. However, in these cars the system was disabled and inactive. The tubes and valves were only present for homologation reasons.

Read more at Wikipedia.org