BMW's New M4 MotoGP Safety Car Has Water Cooled Turbocharging

The high-performance S55 3-liter inline 6-cylinder biturbo plant that’s animating the Coupe will get a new cooling system that is supposed to raise the bar in performance even higher.

One of the issues cars with forced induction have to deal with is the high temperature of the turbocharger(s) that leads to various other complications all around. In order to get as much power out of a combustion chamber as possible, the air that’s going in has to be as cool as possible and that can be overcome with the intercoolers we’re using today.

However, they have their own technical limits and to overcome them, BMW thought of using a water injection device that cools things off via an intercooler working specifically with H2O.

The specifics are explained in the attached pdf but what you need to remember is that it’s all very complicated and it will lead to a further increase in power and efficiency.

According to BMW, the whole installation needed for this to work will be stored in the boot and includes a water pump, of course, sensors, valves and a 5-liter tank. The pressure with which the water is delivered rises to 10 bar.

One issue will be that you’ll have to refill the water tank once in a while. Think of it just like the AdBlue people are using for diesels. The difference is that while AdBlue is refilled once every couple of thousand of miles, the water tank for such systems would have to be refilled every fifth tank of petrol, no matter the speed you drive it at.

We posted a video below that explains things a little better. Unfortunately, BMW didn’t state any specific performance numbers for now. However, they did say that their new finding will be making its way on a new model in the near future. In the meantime, we’ll get to see this Safety Car at the Geneva Motor Show.