Lean burn

Lean burn is an internal combustion of lean air-fuel mixtures. It happens at very high air-fuel ratios (up to 65:1), so the mixture has considerably less amount of fuel in comparison to stoichiometric combustion ratio (14.6:1 for petrol).

The engines designed for lean burning can employ higher compression ratios and thus provide better performance, efficient fuel use and low exhaust emissions than those found in conventional petrol engines. Ultra lean mixtures with very high air-fuel ratios can only be achieved by Direct Injection engines.

The main drawback of lean burning is the large amount of NOx being generated, so a complex catalytic converter system is required. Lean burn engines do not work well with modern 3-way catalytic converters, which require a balance of pollutants at the exhaust port in order to carry out both oxidation and reduction reactions, so most modern engines run at or near the stoichiometric point.


Chrysler Lean Burn computer

From the late 1970s to mid 1980s, Chrysler equipped many of its North American production cars with a spark control computer which it called the Lean Burn Computer on the large sticker on the unit.

Mounted on the air filter housing of most rear-wheel drive cars Chrysler produced during this time, it was responsible for adjusting spark timing based on manifold vacuum, engine speed, engine temperature and incoming air temperature; by doing this, Chrysler eliminated the traditional vacuum and centrifugal timing advance mechanisms used on distributors in order to provide more accurate spark timing. It also provided drive for the ignition coil directly, eliminating the separate ignition module.

Based on an early computer system, most Lean Burn computers were an open-loop emissions control system with no provided diagnostic port or "Check Engine" warning light, were difficult to troubleshoot, and were greatly responsible for the poor reliability reputation which dogged Chrysler at the time.

Many Lean Burn computers were replaced with the more reliable electronic ignition module and centrifugal/vacuum advance distributors used on earlier Chrysler vehicles, almost universally to improvements in fuel economy and driveability.


Heavy-duty gas engines

Lean burn concepts are often used for the design of heavy-duty natural gas, biogas, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fuelled engines. These engines can either be full-time lean burn, where the engine runs with a weak air-fuel mixture regardless of load and engine speed, or part-time lean burn (also known as "lean mix" or "mixed lean"), where the engine runs lean only during low load and at high engine speeds, reverting to a stoichiometric air-fuel mixture in other cases.

Heavy-duty lean burn gas engines admit as much as 75% more air than theoretically needed for complete combustion into the combustion chambers. The extremely weak air-fuel mixtures lead to lower combustion temperatures and increased forced induction possibilities (that would otherwise be limited by high exhaust gas temperatures), leading to higher theoretical efficiencies when compared to engines running on a stoichiometric air-fuel mixture.


Honda lean burn systems

One of the newest lean-burn technologies available in automobiles currently in production uses very precise control of fuel injection, a strong air-fuel swirl created in the combustion chamber, a new linear air-fuel sensor (LAF type O2 sensor) and a lean-burn NOx catalyst to further reduce the resulting NOx emissions that increase under "lean-burn" conditions and meet NOx emissions requirements.

This stratified-charge approach to lean-burn combustion means that the air-fuel ratio isn't equal throughout the cylinder. Instead, precise control over fuel injection and intake flow dynamics allows a greater concentration of fuel closer to the spark plug tip (richer), which is required for successful ignition and flame spread for complete combustion. The remainder of the cylinders' intake charge is progressively leaner with an overall average air:fuel ratio falling into the lean-burn category of up to 22:1.

The older Honda engines that used lean burn (not all did) accomplished this by having a parallel fuel and intake system that fed a pre-chamber the "ideal" ratio for initial combustion. This burning mixture was then opened to the main chamber where a much larger and leaner mix then ignited to provide sufficient power. During the time this design was in production this system (CVCC, Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion) primarily allowed lower emissions without the need for a catalytic converter. These were carburated engines and the relative "imprecise" nature of such limited the MPG abilities of the concept that now under MPI (Multi-Port fuel Injection) allows for higher MPG too.

The newer Honda stratified charge (lean burn engines) will operate on air-fuel ratios as high as 22:1. The amount of fuel drawn into the engine is much lower than a typical gasoline engine which operates at 14.7:1. That being the chemical stoichiometric ideal for complete combustion when averaging gasoline to be the petrochemical industries' accepted standard of C6H8.

This lean-burn ability by the necessity of the limits of physics, and the chemistry of combustion as it applies to a current gasoline engine must be limited to light load and lower RPM conditions. A "top" speed cut-off point is required since leaner gasoline fuel mixtures burn slower and for power to be produced combustion must be "complete" by the time the exhaust valve opens.


Applications

* 1993–95 Civic VX
* 1998–2000 Civic Hx
* 2001 Civic Hx
* 2002–06 Civic Hybrid
* 2000–06 Insight


Diesel engines

All diesel engines are lean burning. This is essential to the way they ignite the fuel.