http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...FREE/510140701

It would seem that finally a zero force camless engine will be produced. Consider what fuel injection did for power production. This is way more potentially significant.

Some years ago there was an attempt to make spherical valves for car motor application which would have been near zero friction but the technology was difficult to make work in small gas engines. It's used in extremely large ship engines and power plants.

EDIT: yes it's old but we should start hearing about it soon.

 

But given that potential problem, the ability to vary cam timing electronically creates lots of potential.

The loss in friction certainly will be one of the greatest benifits.

 

mmmmm 20% power or gas saving which ever ppl decide

 

Might give you power but that's another nail in the coffin for the home mechanic. First computer controlled engines meant that you either had to buy a programmer or get someone to tune the car, instead of using a screwdriver and now, w/o cams, the only thing the diyer can do is intake manifolds and headers. Though 20% more power is nice, but to get more, how much work/money is that going to be?

 

the upside is that you can in fact tune your ECU yourself. You just have to abandon all the hardware tuning skillz you used to find so helpful and adopt a new comfort with electronics handling the math.

Remember, the friction alone isn't all that's being eliminated. The biggest eater of energy in the valvetrain isn't the friction of one part rubbing another per se' it's the overcoming of the valve spring pressure at the insane rate that we ask of them. The more aggressive the opening side of the cam lobe the harder it is on the cam and other moving parts. When you don't have to deal with opening time being a major factor (super fast acting solenoids would be required anyway to make the thing work) you can have the valve open much faster, stay open longer and close faster without worrying about bouncing the valve off the seat. I see a new generation of power on the way.

Keep in mind that the old way of using 2, 3, 4 or even 5 valves per cylinder may also be gone. With the advent of the camless system you could reasonably join the valves into a single unit with electro-mechanical means to switch between the exhaust path and the intake path. Fewer moving parts is better moving parts.

 

Great point! I already feel that way when I pop the hood of an import car. ha ha

 

lets just have ford make a flat six mid engine or steal one from porsche
JK lol

 

why would you want a glorified bug motor? v8 mang.

 

You gotta hand it to Porche though. They tuned both their 4's and 6's to make some damn good power, and some were air cooled on top of that! However, give me an all-American V8 under the hood and a white ball in my hand no matter how much slower it is compared to anything else.

 

wringing out max power of street car engines like porche, saab, and others (you'll understand in a sec) has a side effect of less reliable engines. If you put more motor then you need in and tune it to only moderate levels of aggression then it will survive longer than a motor tuned to the razors edge. Still, yeah I do credit Porche with making absolutely the scariest 6 NA bangers. Wringing 400hp from a little 3.5L engine is impressive... just ask Teal Beast.

 

so i suppose that's why those damn honda's last for freakin' ever...

 

that's exactly why... and they're really well made, in america.

 

I wouldn't go that far. A guy in my college's auto shop had his engine literally fall ou of the car in his CRX because the mount (the portion on the block) broke. To fix it, he had to get a new block. There's your Honda reliability right there.

 

holy crap one guy out of millions had a problem with his honda they must be unreliable!

Seriously though as much as I dislike honda cars, Honda builds some of the best small engines in the world. Theres a reason honda generators are outselling every other brand. Honda engines are also now more reliable than briggs & stratton (which was like the gold standard for small engines for as long as i can remember), which is losing serious market share in the small engine field to these damn honda motors that refuse to break.

 

Not really, the owner informed me that it was a common problem w/ his engine. Still, my old teacher from high school summed the debate between domestic vs. import the best: "Open the hood on American cars and everything is there in the open, and easy to work on. On an import, something is not only covering it, but there's just so much involved. My old Mustang, yeah I'll work on it. My STI, I don't dare to touch.

 

what does subaru have to do with honda? Also engine compartment layout can be just as crappy on an american car. I've seen alot of american cars that were also impossible to get to anything in the engine. My aunt just bought a cadillac STS and when she popped the hood you couldn't get to ANYTHING without removing all these plastic pieces. Hell my friend can't even get to the battery in his old chevy lumina without removing three bolts and a metal bar.

 

Whatever, my point is simply this: the relability of Japanese cars are way over-hyped while the reliability of anything from the big three are always way, way under estimated. As for the Lumina, it got worse when they put the windshield washer resivoir on top of the battery. Let's stop this since this has no apparent revelance w/ the substitution of solenoids for cams.