In March, 1991, DDC completed the necessary testing to satisfy EPA and CARB certification requirements and began first full scale production of its 6V-92TA methanol engine for transit bus applications. This was the culmination of nearly a decade of development and millions of miles of service accumulated at demonstration sites.
The purpose of this paper is to document the production configuration, and describe some of the more recent developments which led to establishing the final configuration, provide the final thermal efficiency and exhaust emissions numbers achieved, as well as current demonstrated reliability and performance of this configuration in customer service.
The 6V-92TA methanol transit bus engine generates lower values of all regulated emissions than its diesel counterpart, meets all future emissions standards known today, achieves thermal efficiency within 1-2% of a comparable diesel while producing less than half the NOx emissions, performs as well as a diesel of equal power, and has demonstrated acceptable reliability in customer service.