Could this work on a Type VI and improve mpg ? Looks promising.
Königsegg says this technology will be applied on every engine in 10 years...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bch5B23_pu0

I was wondering when someone would get around to this on a (semi) production engine. I have thought this was the best way to run valves for a long time.

From a pure MPG improvement standpoint I doubt you would ever recoup the cost of the modification.
I'd like to know a ball park cost on 8 units, custom machining and software/CPU.

Maybe from a performance angle, but I see one problem with the type four (maybe even a /6) in a 914, the modified valve train (vid at 6:00) and cover might have a problem fitting between the trailing arms.

I dunno, Mark, I had that same car and that modified OHC engine is a lot shorter than stock. I'm thinking that assembly isn't much taller than an OHV configuration, so might well fit. I can't see anyone making that kind of a cylinder head for a 40 year old car that's no longer produced anywhere in any form, but I don't think size would be the main reason.

You know what else is interesting is that without camshafts you could easily "cluster" cylinders any way you like, creating boxers, spirals, radials, narrow "V"s or whatever shape/size is needed to fit in you allotted space. No cam chains or belts, anywhere a rod could reach a crank would be fine.

That's really impressive.

They have done a lot of work to get to a test vehicle that can last 60,000 miles, and probably have a lot more to do to get it to higher mileage production car reliability.

So far they seem to have a good start on the basic issues- a working design, long wearing air seals, non-wearing materials, working clearances at different temperatures, pulse reflection surging/canellation (remember why exhausts and intakes are tuned) and the need to change the control of the system for different air temperatures.

What they didn't talk about is the need for a pretty good sized air pump, an air storage tank, really good air pressure control over a wide range of temperatures and altitudes, an air valving control block to send the correct amount of air to the actuator (see the left side of the engine bay in the video), air pulse reflection control /surging control, and a systems control computer that combines an engine fuel injection computer with a valve control computer. And, nothing is free so the air system does cause some engine HP loss that is more than made up by improved performance.

Air is a compressable fluid and more than 30 years ago I did research on an incompressible fluid (engine oil) valve actuator system. What I found was that to open the valves in a 4 cylinder engine valve with engine oil, you need about 8 gallons per minute of oil flow. Valve springs were used to close, so double the flow to 16 gallons if you open and close. Then there were the problems with oil- viscoscity changes with temperature, surging, foaming, etc.

All in all very impressive. Wonder if it is smooth to drive at all temperatures and conditions.

A few of us at Caltech were talking about the idea of a hybrid air engine just like the one mentioned at the end of the video. That's very exciting.

If one could develop electrical actuators that could tolerate the heat, I think electrical would be smaller, better, need less auxiliary parts like an air tank, much more precise to tune, etc. There may be a weight difference between pneumatic and electric actuators, but it may be negligible if viewed in gestalt.

Back EMF, heat and coil failure worries me.

How is it much different than the coil-on-plug stuff we have now?

Man, if I was as rich as that dude, I would be messing with the same stuff

I am fairly sure that there is no electrical near the valve actuation.
It is all done with air pressure, so the electircal part is in that manifold that he shows under the fender. 1 or 2 high pressure lines to each valve actuator.

For years F1 has been using a pneumatic system in place of valve springs.
This year the limit will be 18000 RPM, it had been 19k, even more is probably possible.
No metal valve spring can perform at that speed.
The system in the video has to be very dependent on electronics, computers and pneumatics. I could be piggybacked onto crankshaft position sensors.
Or is this all very obvious ?
Very cool.

Evil, that's exactly what EFI fuel injectors are- a solenoid that has an electrically actuated coil that moves the injection pintle whenever power flows to the injector. If they can do this for a fuel injector in the same environment, they can do it for a valve.

Unfortunately, solenoids work backwards in that they generate an initial low force at the beginning of a stroke, and maximum force at the end of the stroke. So if you have a solenoid hooked up to a valve, it has a low force to start the valve to move, and then, right before the valve slams to a stop in the full open position, the force hits a maximum.

In the attached graph, the maximum force curve is for a 10% duty cycle (turned on 10% of the time), and the worst force curve is for a continuous duty cycle (full on). Notice at the beginning of the actuation (right side of the graph) the force created to open the valve is a pathetic .1-.4 kgf. The maximum stroke is on the left side of the graph and the valve slams to a full open stop at about 2mm line on the graph. So, the force application is backwards with a solenoid.

I've used solenoids in products, but had to allow the solenoid to free flight initially to move up the force curve. Once the force was sufficient, I’d smack the moving solenoid into a stationary object that needed moving. If a solenoid is used to hold the valve closed, the coil heats up and the solenoid force curve moves to the worst case/lowest force of the continuous on position.