Caterpillar poised with more
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• US-based diesel engine maker Caterpillar is poised to launch two new engine ranges, both of which could be powering European trucks within two years.
The closest to production is the 311 Series, which has a common cylinder size of 1.1 litres. It will be built in two basic forms, as the fourcylinder 3114 and as the sixcylinder 3116, with power outputs of up to 180kW.
Technically, the 311 is interesting because of its use of unit injectors — similar to those used on the very largest Caterpillar stationary engines. Each injector is driven by its own pushrod from the highmounted camshaft.
Pilot production of this engine has begun at Caterpillar's Gossellies plant in Belgium, and prototype units have already been delivered to plant manufacturers in Britain and in Europe. No European truck applications for the engine have yet been found, but Foden — the only European user of the bigger Caterpillar engines — has hinted that it would like to build a 17-tomer, for which this range of engines would seem ideal. Caterpillar is nego tiating with a large US truck maker to supply the new engine in large numbers.
Of greater technical interest than the 311, however, will be a bigger engine, the 317 Series, with 1.7-litre cylinders. This would give the sixcylinder 3176 a 10.2-litre capacity, almost the same as Caterpillar's existing 10.5-litre 3306 engine, and must be seen as the eventual replacement for that engine for automotive applications.
The 3176 will, like the 3306B, be available in air-to-air aftercooled (ATAAC) form, but to meet the 1990 emissions rules it will have a fullyelectronically-controlled fuelling system. It will also have unit injection, and will be similar to the smaller 311 (and yet another future engine based on two-litre cylinders) in having traditional Caterpillar features like a one-piece cylinder head and a steel insert plate between head and block to obviate the need for machined recesses in the block for the tops of the liners, It is likely that the 3176 Series engines will be ready for prototype installations in trucks by the end of 1988.