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K NG CIF THE H LL
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In what is fast becoming the most intense period for truck launches in memory, this week Scania unveiled its product line-up for Euro-4 and beyond. Colin Barnett reports.
S.
cania has long enjoyed the title "King of the road". But to be a king you need power, and judged on that basis. Scania's crown has been knocked askew in recent years. Never fear, Scania fans' the King is back.
The past few years have seen power outputs reach a plateau.Volvo and Mercedes have sneaked just over the 600hp barrier and its no secret that others could easily do likewise In fact extracting huge power is relatively easily.What has been holding back progress is getting the accompanying torque onto the road.
So far only Volvo has had enough confidence in its transmissions to offer more than 2,700N m — its FH16 610 churns out 2,800Nm. Now, however, Scania has raised the stakes big time with its heavyweight contender, the 16-litre V8 620 True, the 620 refers as usual to marketing friendly PS, or metric horsepower, equivalent to 612 of Her Majesty's imperial horses, but there's nothing contrived about its 3,000Nm of torque Scania now offers no less than 21 engine choices, including two for Euro-5 — a remarkable number fora manufacturer whose range only starts at 18 tonnes Apart from that V8620, thettgeStehange is the increasmi in-line six-cylinder from 10.6 to 11.7 litres.
by adopting the V8 's bore and stroke of 127x154mm, a stroke increase of 14mm On the whole range, from the 8.9-litre five-pot to the 15.6-litre V8, compression ratios have been reduced from 18:1 to 17:1 for Euro-4 and 5. All Euro-4 and 5 six-cylinder engines and the 420 and 470 Euro-3 units are fuelled by Scania's HP1 common-rail injection, everything else has PDE unit injectors.
Turbo-compounding is now used on the Euro-4 420 and 470.
To obtain the Euro-4 standard all the in-line engines use EGA: cooling requirements mean the V8s use SCR However, Scania admits that the demand for Euro-5. due initially to incentives from Germany, and soon likely to be joined by Austria, Holland, the Czech Republic. Norway, Spain and Slovakia. caught it by surprise For an interim Euro-5 six-cylinder application it will be offering a420 with SCR from February, but it expects the definitive Euro-5 range to have another solution.
A 500hp Euro-5 V8 will be on offer from next May, again with SCR. Meanwhile development of Euto-3 engines continues, with significant markets such as Russia not likely to progress to Euro-4 before 2010.
The other new weapon in Scania's armoury is a range of lighter gearboxes which, given their technology sharing agreement, is also likely to appear in MAN products in due course. The main line-up follows the same pattern as the current range, with similar ratios, butthe actual boxes are totally new.
Instead of the current layout of a cast-iron tub, the new design is an aluminium tube with integral bell housing.The gears are inserted through the rear opening before thecast iron rear housing is fitted.
Once fitted the rear housing incorporates the range-change and splitter gears.The basic 12
speeder has the greatest weight saving. equipped
with Opticruise and a retarder it loses 69kg.
The four mainstream gearboxes are an eight-speeder, with or without a single crawler, and a 12-speeder, this time with two crawlers available These are all direct-drive units, but the one that has the job of tackling 3,000Nm is the G RS0905, an overdrive 12 speeder with the two crawlers.
Although it is publicly rated at 3,000Nm. Scania's engineers say its ultimate capacity is
-significantly higher" All of
these can be supplied with the Scania retarder, and all except the 0R905 (eight-speed and crawler) are available with Opticruise automated shift.
Any operators hoping that Scania would take the opportunity to finally dispense with the clutch pedal on Opticruise will be disappointed The official reasons for staying with it are said to be better control in adverse weather conditions, a better limp-home mode and, significantly, the fact that 50% of operators questioned want to keep it.
Other gearbox changes include thicker clutch linings, which Scania says should last the life of the vehicle in light-duty long-distance operation, and a 25% lighter pedal pressure.
Reduced maintenance and increased oil-drain intervals, thanks to the use of synthetic oil, new Opticruise mechatronics, and a more powerful, fully integrated retarder complete the list of improvements to the transmission.
There is one final addition to the gearbox range: the G670 fitted only to the P230 and P270 18tonne 4x2 rigids.The six-speeder is a ZFdesigned unit, which has a decade of bus service behind it and is said to have a carlike gear-change We'll have to wait and see, though, as it doesn't go into production until May 2006. Surprisingly, given that urban distribution is the perfect environment for self-changing gears, there are no plans to fit it with Opticruise.
Impressions
So who needs 612hp, and what does 3,00014m really mean on the road? It might be a luxury in the UK, but for the 60-tanners in Scania's home markets, there is a genuine demand. We tried it in the Belgian Ardennes, including a hill which climbed 200m in just over 4km We tried the 500 first (the trucks were running at 40 tonnes with Opticruise and retarder).The first thing that impressed us was excellent integration of the downhill cruise control and retarder.There's also a hand lever, but the retarder is best left in automatic mode, where a touch on the brake pedal engages it and holds the same speed until you either slow further ortouth the throttle pedal.
The baby VS did a good job up the long hill, but needed the pedal flat to the f loor all the way. With the 620 we had to liftoff for some bends and to stay within the speed limit. It ran two gears higher than the 470 we tried later, while the Opticruise kept the revs at the optimum level.
Compared with its home rivals, Scene takes a different approach to gear changing. Volvo's I-Shift uses a gearbox brake to match the speed to the non-synchromesh gear speeds, while Scania relies on using engine speed adjustment and synchromesh. We reckon Volvo has the edge on speed of changing but wouldn't turn down a Scania R620, even with its unnecessary clutch pedal.