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Koenigsegg Jesko's twin-turbocharged V-8 speed turned from idle to red line in 0.213 seconds, beating all other street-legal mass-produced cars ever produced.

The 5.1-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 engine that powers Koenigsegg Jesko may be the fastest engine ever installed on a mass-produced road car. But according to the founder Christian von Koenigsegg, this is not even the goal of the engineer when building this engine.

"Engine starting speed" is the speed at which an internal combustion engine without load can obtain its speed. This is a statistic that most automakers are reluctant to release. The last time this topic was discussed was more than ten years ago, when the glorious Yamaha V-10 powered the Lexus LFA-this car needs a digital tachometer to keep up with its free-revving engine, which can go from idling to 9000 rpm It only takes 0.6 seconds and the pickup speed is 15,000 rpm/sec.

Today, data from Koenigsegg shows that the average pickup speed of the company's latest V-8 is 31,700 rpm per second, and the peak pickup speed reaches an almost unbelievable 46,000 rpm per second in the middle of the engine speed range. This is crazy, as far as we know, this is the historical record of road car engines.

Interestingly, until Gordon Murray Automotive started talking about this statistic in August 2020, the company did not even study the pickup speed capability of its new engine. This British supercar startup was founded by the person behind (and named after it) McLaren F1 claims that its 4.0-liter naturally aspirated V-12 engine is made by Cosworth and its pickup speed is 28,400 rpm/ It only took 0.3 seconds to reach the red line from idling speed, which is jaw-dropping.

But when the Koenigsegg engineers studied the acceleration capabilities of their own engines, they found that the Jesko powerplant defeated GMA's Cosworth V-12. "The Gordon Murray car is the only reference we've heard of," Christian von Koenigsegg told Road & Track. "Because they are very proud of it, an engineer came to me and said,'Christian, you know we are better than that.' I said, really? If it's such a big thing, maybe we should mention it. one time."

According to von Koenigsegg, the decisive factor that makes Jesko's engine speed faster than GMA is not inside the engine-but the gearbox. Murray's car uses a custom six-speed manual transmission made by Xtrac, replacing the traditional flywheel and three-plate clutch with thin titanium discs. This setting allowed such fast engine response, and GMA had to install sophisticated speed matching software to achieve smoother driving.

But Jesko's gearbox has no flywheel, clutch and synchronizer. The gearbox is called Lightspeed and has nine forward gears; it is integrated with the engine block, weighs 198 pounds, and can withstand more than 1,100 pound-feet of torque. The Lightspeed gearbox has seven wet clutches in its aluminum housing, instead of the traditional clutch mechanism between the engine and the gearbox, there is also a wet clutch for the electronically controlled differential.

The unconventional gearbox design allows unprecedented functions in road vehicles. In Jesko, you can switch directly from any gear to any other gear almost immediately. No matter what speed you are driving at, double-clicking the gear selector will automatically downshift to the lowest possible gear to achieve maximum acceleration.

Due to the way the gearbox works, speed matching is also not required. von Koenigsegg said: “We can use the gearbox to force the engine to change the speed faster, but the synchronizer cannot do that.” “The most important thing is that with nine gears, you have an ultra-short transmission ratio. This is true. It’s very good, as tight as a motorcycle. I have high expectations, but it really surprised me in terms of participation and response, how it can meet your requirements immediately."

Von Koenigsegg said his team never paid attention to the engine's starting speed. Removing the flywheel and clutch helps to make the transmission system lighter and more compact—the crazy speed building ability is a side benefit. "It's very wild," von Koenigsegg said. "I have never seen an engine without a flywheel, but it runs perfectly-first in simulation, then in reality."

As we all know, the GMA T.50 is the last naturally aspirated supercar available today. Murray is adamantly opposed to turbochargers-he once compared the responsiveness of a turbo engine to "watching the paint dry." The Koenigsegg twin-turbocharged V-8 obviously does not have this feature, and the people behind the brand are eager to explain why.

"The turbocharger itself has no effect on the responsiveness of the engine," von Koenigsegg said. "More often, there are heavier parts inside the turbo engine. Of course, if you have a huge turbocharger, your boost will lag, which is different from the engine's starting speed."

Von Koenigsegg admits that under very special driving conditions, you may experience increasing power in Jesko. Cruise in 9 gears at 1700 rpm? Yes, if you step it on the floor, you won't feel most of the increase until around 3000 rpm. "However, if you switch to the gear lever and go from 1700 rpm to 7000 rpm in an instant, there will be no delay. You can absolutely drive it without turbocharging at all and always maintain full power."

The result seemed to be beyond the expectations of the founder of the Swedish supercar company. "We expect an excellent response, no flywheel or clutch, and it seems to be faster than anything else we know. It feels amazingly fast. I have been using the word "synapse". Like, you consider RPM, you have it. No lag. It's there, immediately. It's cool."

In neutral, the speed of the Jesko V-8 is limited to 7,800 rpm, which is increased to 8,500 rpm in gear. The automaker is considering adding an air injection system that uses a small electric compressor to inject precisely timed 290 psi of air directly into the turbocharger, pre-winding them to eliminate lag, but the test proved that this is not the case. necessary.

The engine that powers Jesko is actually an evolution of the V-8 in the Agera RS. With a displacement of less than 5.1 liters, it is a flat crank design with dry oil pan lubrication. As a long-stroke engine, the Koenigsegg team must seriously consider vibration when reaching the 8500 rpm red line. The connecting rods are a Swedish steel alloy instead of the titanium alloy in Agera RS, but each weighs only 1.19 pounds. This new material provides additional strength without adding weight. Each piston weighs 0.63 pounds and has a ceramic coating to prevent hot spots under heavy engine loads. Each cylinder has a pressure sensor and two injectors; the third injector is located in the intake chamber above each cylinder. In terms of pumping air, Jesko V-8 can produce 1280 horsepower; switch to E85, this figure rises to 1600.

Koenigsegg is one of the most extreme examples of car manufacturers on the planet. The multi-million dollar supercar that left the brand's factory has amazing engineering solutions that no other vehicle has. This is just the first part of our extensive conversation with von Koenigsegg-please stay tuned for more in the days to come.