Future of engines?

I dont have volume on my pc here right now, but i know i was impressed when top gear did an episode with the ccx, and wrecked it, :D but they mentioned 800ish hp off of pump gas, 900ish off of diesel, and 1000+ish off of biodiesel, all on the same engine, those guys know what they are doing for sure.
 
Camless valve actuation hasn't been quite ready for low cost production yet, but it's getting close. A lot of different things you can do for better fuel economy.

Unlike most of the "engines of the future" technologies that you see, this one will start to be common soon.

The problems have been cost, repeatability (it doesn't take much of an error to cause significant errors in air mass which can screw up you emissions) and getting a reliable "soft landing" for the valve closing.
 
30% less fuel, 30% less engine weight, 30% more power. :rolleyes:

I love innovation and experimentation, but I'll need to see some hard numbers and data first. :D
 
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VanDy said:
I dont have volume on my pc here right now, but i know i was impressed when top gear did an episode with the ccx, and wrecked it, :D but they mentioned 800ish hp off of pump gas, 900ish off of diesel, and 1000+ish off of biodiesel, all on the same engine, those guys know what they are doing for sure.
Click to expand...

Turn on CC and check it out
 
Geico266 said:
30% less fuel, 30% less engine weight, 30% more power. :rolleyes:

I love innovation and experimentation, but I'll need to see some hard numbers and data first. :D
Click to expand...

I'm sure the data will come, conceptually I can see that the numbers might be valid due to reduction in rotating mass, and major improvements in VE
 
Excellent step in the right direction.

Anything to increase hp, reduce fuel consumption, and weight.
 
As I watched that video, my mind went racing!! What a great technology, whether it's been around for 15 years, or 5 minutes. I see much smaller engine bays with super high torque engines, and very low fuel consumption.

I also wonder if this technology could also be used on the pistons as well? I don't see why there would be a need for a crank shaft either if this technology can withstand the stress of the larger piston compression on the rod.

Imagine how small an engine could get with no crank, cam, or serp belt or gears! All electronic but still combustion...and internally "turboed" cool!
 
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Buick had an engine that did this decades ago. It was a nightmare then. Hopefully people can do this better now, but it's not new.
 
Archammer said:
As I watched that video, my mind went racing!! What a great technology, whether it's been around for 15 years, or 5 minutes. I see much smaller engine bays with super high torque engines, and very low fuel consumption.

I also wonder if this technology could also be used on the pistons as well? I don't see why there would be a need for a crank shaft either if this technology can withstand the stress of the larger piston compression on the rod.

Imagine how small an engine could get with no crank, cam, or serp belt or gears! All electronic but still combustion...and internally "turboed" cool!
Click to expand...

How would it work without a crankshaft? How would the power get to the transmission?
 
I think the Fiat 500 uses this technology on the intake side. Exhaust valves are still cam actuated.
 
What camless designs buy you is not mechanical efficiency. They allow you to tune for conditions without making a lot of moving parts. For instance, you might want an earlier intake valve opening event and longer overlap at high RPM. With conventional engines, this requires multiple cams; Honda has been doing that in their VTEC engines for years. But it only has two settings -- high and low. With electrically actuated valves, you could remove the high/low tradeoff entirely and just open the valve at the best possible time, like is done with spark timing. You could change the timing every time the throttle is mashed or the RPM goes over 3000.

This could be a big deal IF it worked. However, a head is a very hostile environment, so that "if" is a really big one. It has to last hundreds of thousands of miles or its going to fail miserably. How does this break? How does it degrade? What happens as the valve recedes? What is the response to detonation? What about broken wiring or poor grounding? What do exhaust gasses do to the solenoids? Does the strength/speed of actuation limit RPM? What kinds of magnetic fields is this thing going to put out?

More importantly, what kinds of feedbacks can we use to adapt it?
 
Hydraulic actuated valves started with the Tucker Franklin based air cooled engine in the 1940s. There were a lot of issues to overcome. These are pnuematic, but there are still some concerns to overcome as well. The air pressure to activate the valves is not free energy. The guy was talking about energy brake recovery refilling the air pressure tank, and using it as an air engine for take off again.

It's a good program, but it's not the grail yet. As always, a complete energy budget needs to be reviewed. If the air tank requires a few HP to keep charged, that's in place of the HP required to turn cams.
 
Will the rotary engine ever make a comeback?

IIRC they us ports, no actual valve train.
 
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