_Nick_

I've been fascinated with Free Valve technology for a while now, and am considering making a head with Free valves in it. I need help figuring it out. Konigsegg wont return my emails, for obvious reasons.

I think if someone invented these for LS cars and trucks they could make some serious money.

Is there anyone who has the engineering knowledge to design it? I don't know anything about the sensors and circuts.

djmlax89

The design of the actuators themselves is fairly simple, I drew out something very similar in my spare time back in high school. Their website has some diagrams and cutaways that show it's general design.

The absolute nightmare of this system comes in with the programming, which is what stopped me from pursuing it further. You would have to program every movement of every valve for every possible engine RPM, load, and throttle application. This gets even more complex if you are using it to it's fullest potential (to spool a turbo, control throttle, cut timing on shifts, DOD, etc) You would also have to program in failsafe parameters in case an actuator, loss of pressure, or other engine failure occurs if you ever want to be able to sleep at night.

And to top it off, all of those parameters would have to be reprogrammed if you added long-tubes, or a Vararam, or any other engine related modification - and good luck finding a shop that would come within 100 miles of touching that.

As awesome as it would be, that's an undertaking I'd leave to OE's or someone with more money than I (and their own personal IT department).

_Nick_

Yeah, you're right. I was thinking that there's probably a way to use the Crankshaft position sensor to notify the valves when to open and close, but the engineering is beyond my ability. Someone's going to do it, and make a lot of money.

I want one so bad!

drseth

I am with you there. Even with a 2 valve/cylinder combustion chamber, there would be much less weight from not having a timing chain, can, lifters, push rods, rocker arms, and whatever else I overlooked. I guess with that pneumatic system, you would need an air reservoir for cold startup. I would think some electrically activated actuators would be easier to get to run. I also thought a hydraulic actuator might be an answer, but the speed necessary to open and close a valve might be a limiting factor.

At 6000 rpms an intake valve opens and closes 50 times a second, if my calculations are correct, which is mind-boggling. And on top of that, opening a little earlier or later in the cycle is that short a period of time is crazy.

But, that Koennesigg guy must have a big brain, and have enough funds to pay computer experts to program the thing.

This technology might be more optimally be utilized in a slide valve, as opposed to a poppet valve.

The beauty of this camless concept is that you can have a multifuel engine, with the ability to tune for economy, power, and low pollution separately or all at the same time.

I think this technology will spell the end of hybrid cars.

cv67

neat concept
sure the big 3 have played with it for years, guessing reliability is the big factor. One fault and bam, goodbye engine

Would put a lot of aftermarket guys out of biz, too.

skylineTT

A new aftermarket would follow. People sourcing bigger valved actuators or big valve conversions with actuator modifications to handle the extra inertia, along with your typical porting. I'd imagine Holley would spend some money figuring it out then it would trickle down to the little guys. Camshafted engines wouldn't be replaced either, not for a looooong time.

The programming part wouldn't be too difficult. For economy they'd likely use a linear or exponential lift curve in relation to load, that way you achieve low lift at idle/cruise/over-run for good economy then high lift when the engine needs torque/power. Whether they'd use linear or exponential depends on how much lift they need in different running conditions. "Tuners" may add full lift back at idle for a massive idle lope but remove it at cruise and over-run for economy.

The set of equations to achieve this aren't so complex since all of the speeds, times, and displacements are finite, known, and related. Anybody that can program a standalone ECU can derive the equations needed to describe the motion of the valve, which are many in the DIY community. Then you translate those equations into an electrical pulse that drives the valve. The harder part, in my opinion, would be the installation and sourcing the valve that could actually perform at this speed and precision, which from what I understand, is few and far between.

techinspector1

50 years ago, a young fellow introduced me to the concept of rotary valves, basically an intake tube and an exhaust tube that spun atop a bank of inline cylinders, timed from the crankshaft via chains or gears. These tubes had openings machined into them along their lengths to allow fresh mixture in and burnt gases out from cylinders along the way and in/out through the ends of the tubes. The problem that I saw at that time was sealing up the whole mess to contain the pressure of combustion.

Anything can be overcome however, witness the perfection of Felix Wankel's original design by the Toyo Kogyo engineers. Many millions of "Wankel" engines are in service all over the world today and I'm fairly certain the this "rotary tube valve" design could be made to work well also. In Mr. Wankels original design, the motor had to be disassembled to change the spark plug(s).

Of course, at some time in the future, we will be allowed access to the technology that makes interstellar travel possible and the internal combustion engine design will be relegated to history. I'm convinced that it is being played with at Groom Lake, there's just too much being concealed from us to think otherwise.

Klondike

"50 years ago, a young fellow introduced me to the concept of rotary valves, basically an intake tube and an exhaust tube that spun atop a bank of inline cylinders, timed from the crankshaft via chains or gears. These tubes had openings machined into them along their lengths to allow fresh mixture in and burnt gases out from cylinders along the way and in/out through the ends of the tubes. The problem that I saw at that time was sealing up the whole mess to contain the pressure of combustion."
I believe Franklin Automobiles had an engine that used that arrangement and was said to be very smooth in operation. A few years ago I saw something similar from a company in Canada. Instead of tubes that the air flowed through, there was a shaft that contained hollowed out ***** that the shaft turned. The ***** seated into machined pockets in the head so when the ***** spun to a certain position, their hollowed out sections aligned with the openings in the cylinder head and became part of the intake or exhaust port. They were building huge industrial power plant engines at the time and I haven't heard what ever became of the design.

Roger Bouws

Speaking of Wankel


. ever seen one of these?

Blake Harvey

I am aware this conversation was years ago, but I had to say something. A fail on the part wouldn't be catastrophic. You are thinking of it working the opposite way, the valve is normally open via spring pressure, the air or other methods of actuation is what makes it close. So when there is a failure, the engine doesn't destroy itself.

NSFW

If someone can do the hardware and someone can do the electronics, I'll do the software.

​​​​​The actuators sound like the really hard part.

"Kor-Vetteing"

Now what I think happened was people thought this was a free valve head giveaway so 15k people wasted their time lmao

HTXtremes

http://www.coatesengine.com/csrv-system.html

Kingtal0n

I think the two systems should work together. The valve is still opened by a traditional cam but has additional support from an actuator which can open the valve earlier or hold it open longer as warranted. it can also 'help' open the valve which will free up some friction and energy allowing the engine to rotate more easily (a big issue for heavy spring engines) and if the actuator fails the valve just opens like normal.

The way combustion and electricity is combined for some engines. Use one... use the other... use both.

FastCarsNMeanGuitars

The programming seems to be difficult to fathom if you think of inputting it as linear code. When you consider a probe on a 3-D printer for example it is essentially inputting code of a stationary object into a file. Simple enough , now imagine the probes on an LS engine to track valve movement on a particular camshaft for each cylinder, valve and the crank. Now your into machine learning and development. Not as hard as initially envisioned. In addition F1 is well into the development and applications. You will see for example HAAS and McLaren in development, Koenigsegg is fun to watch regarding development. 3-D printing parts has accelerated development to the next level. Divergent3D is there and FreeValve is next for their development. https://www.divergent3d.com/