Inside Koenigsegg Cam-less engine
 

I just watched this video and thought I'd share. I've never heard of this technology and it seems pretty awesome. Anyone else have thought's/opinions on this?

I have watched that entire series.

I would smuggle my way into Sweden and work as a slave if I could be involved in Koenigsegg's R&D department.

I work for a small machine automation design company that is very tight knit and hands on. To work in that same atmosphere but in the field of hypercars would be my dream.

So who is making a standalone system for this camless system on the 99-00 head? lol.

Same. That guy and his company are awesome

Im really glad I watched that, seriously fascinating.

I have nothing but the highest regard and respect for these guys.
I wish they had an internship program.

Fascinating

Taking F1 technology to the streets. I love it!

Truly programmable valves would be a HUGE leap in performance and emissions. Cam designers can only dream of a square lobe shape. I look forward to the day this becomes more mainstream.

The way the guy pronounces koenigsegg is so cooooool!!

Seems like it would be very vulnerable to sludge build up in the smaller passages, kind of like the NA HLAs.

Seeing this sort of thing makes me regret the fact that I threw away an opportunity to work at Fisker several years ago, and pretty much want to kill myself.

Someone should donate a head to Bogus and see if he could replicate one of those.

want :drool:

Sick.

I would love to see how much it would cost for something like that. Clearly it can be retrofitted to other engines. I'm sure it'd be cost prohibitive but I can't help but wonder...It would definitely be fun to play with.

It's impressive how they seem to have developed a reliable alternative to solenoid activated valves but what kind of compressor load is placed on the engine by this system? I can't imagine that the addition of a compressor for pneumatic driving of the valves is substantially more efficient than a timing belt and mechanical cam. I can easily see their efficiency gains coming from tuning the valve timing / lift / duration though.

The regen braking / accumulator idea sounds pretty cool especially if they are using small n/a engines and could momentarily improve acceleration.

Disclaimer: I may have missed the SAAB air source part, listened to it very quietly.

yeah I too wonder where they are drawing all the air.

to operate those suckers at 10k rpm has got to require quite the pressure and flow. pump?

I doubt it is a of of flow at all. I think its implied that they are using an electric compressor like a shop compressor.

Dann

well yeah, but consider a steady state acceleration at ultra high rpm for a long period of time

that's gotta take a lot of air

at least from my complete guess having watched that vid.

the dude obviously knows what he's doing and is 10x smarter than all of us combined

I need CGI.

To become a test driver you just had to win the local Miata series... (just a coincidence of course) :)

"We've created the next generation of valve technology, and we retrofitted it into an old SAAB" :giggle:

While I sound sarcastic, its actually REALLY DAMN COOL that it CAN be retrofitted into other/older applications! I bet someone builds one for a Honda K eventually.

I wonder, in all seriousness, what the parts cost would be for sixteen of these, plus whatever ancillary supporting hardware is needed. I don't see anything in the NASA TT rules which mandates the use of camshafts.

And we're going to need more outputs on the MS3. Rev, would CANbus be fast enough to run a 16 channel high-current driver board with sufficient angular precision for this application?

Angular precision as in 180-1 trigger wheel 24 inches in diameter?

No way. CAN Bus has a ~2ms latency.

This is really funny that this video comes out now my room mate and I were just talking about this two nights ago. We keep bringing it up and arguing over pneumatic or electronic actuation and who out of the car companies pouring money into are going to do it. I was expecting bmw to come out with the first working prototype to be honest.

So how long till you have MS4 done that can run these?

Couldn't a lossless system be developed for pneumatic actuation?
F1 cars use compressed nitrogen at 3000 psi instead of mechanical valve springs, for instance, and that is a closed system. So far, I have seen just one incident where they had to pit the car and top up nitrogen from a smallish canister.

Hydraulic systems operate in a closed system to actuate all sorts of mechanical doodads (very technical term there), ranging from excavator rams to hi-speed valves in diesel fuel injectors.

From what they say the biggest key is the push system.. that little 1" by 1" cube looking piece. They start producing those and this technology will spread like aids at a club ricer meeting.

Mounts can be made so no new head will be necessary.

Is it not viable to just adjust the timing of the events to accommodate for the latency?

That is not meant to sound like baiting, I legitimately dont understand.

What type of setup would be needed to control it

Yeah it makes no sense to me how we can control the timing and the injector timing and cant control one of these devices. Sure you'll need 16 outputs (8 since they will be in pairs of 2) however currently we're at 8 so... injectors and (sequential) spark plug signals.

my guess is something super 'spensive that has insane resolution and speed.
basically something that would go into a koenigsegg

And will pay for itself in maintenance and economy in a year.

Dann

The fuel injectors and ignition coils are driven from output pins connected directly to the CPU itself- there is essentially zero latency in the path.

Putting any kind of "external" network bus between the main CPU and a subordinate driver, be it ethernet, CAN, or even I2C, adds latency; some more than others, and frequently non-deterministic (variable in an unpredictable or uncontrollable fashion.)

CAN was never really intended for high-speed, time-critical stuff. I just wasn't sure how bad it was, as I've never actually used it.


Given the present-day MS architecture, you'd need a second MS3-type CPU dedicated to the task. Not a big deal, really. Just parallel the crank sensor to both CPUs, and run a CAN line between them so that the main CPU can pass target data (maps) to the one driving the valves.


It's probable that the delay is not constant. This would make prediction impossible.

Wooo no more timing belts!!!

Yea, it'll be more like timing suspenders with this stuff.

Thats what i was thinking parrallel ecus of some sort or perhaps the 440 adaptronic ecu. I thought that had more than 16 outputs.

As far as the delay. Correct its not constant so there needs to be an angular velocity algorithm of some kind for the other cylinders.

How much current can the MS injector drivers handle? I'm pretty sure these are very similar to injectors on the electrical side, well actually they're probably closer to a boost controller. If I had to guess amperage requirements maybe 300 milliamps. But I'm not an electrical guy.

That's kind of a non-issue. The VND5N07s on the MS3X board are limited to 5 amps, but there are only eight of them. Therefore, a new board would have to be designed regardless. It's possible that those actuators may require power in both the on and off direction, but that should be achievable by simply putting two FETs on each CPU pin, with an inverter on one.

I'm interested in learning the details of those actuators. ECU controlled valves is hardly a new idea; the first conception probably occurred about 10 minutes after the first conception of ECU controlled fuel injection. The problem is that nobody has been able to create an actuator that works, and not for lack of trying.

A quick Google search turned up a little bit of history, though I suspect there's been a lot more effort and investment by most of the big auto makers. I'm sure I've heard rumors of research at GM.

There's this from 2001: AutoSpeed - Camless Engines

This is is kinda cool. EVIC engine

As I said, I'd be interested in finding out what makes the actuators in the video different.

The company that is developing the actuator is Cargine, not Koenigsegg. Check out their website.

Cargine | Free Valve Technology

Once a reliable actuator pops up on the market many ecu solutions will spark up after it.

Joe on a 4 cylinder engine you only need 8 outputs to run the valves.

Of course you still need a distributor and a car by fir everything else haha.

Dann

But if you can control each valve individually you want to, so you want 16 circuits. You can do the one valve opening later than the other like the old ccvc engines for more fuel economy for example. And of course having this technology and not using as the throttling device would be silly.

Why would you do that when you can just change the entire lift/timing profile for both at once.

I cannot imagine that opening them at different times is anything other than a way around a problem that lies with fixed camshafts.

Dann

Better swirling in the cylinder, leading to more complete combustion, I would think.

You could also do like the skyactiv engines and go into Atkinson cycle at low loads for FE then to Otto cycle for power at high loads. Though, how many will bother to tune this into their car without software that makes it easy?

Logic says that you'll want to open up the valves to the max even at idle. Cars with big cams idle like shit not because of the lift but because of the duration. With these you could have any duration you want so that wont be a problem.

read about honda (among others) doing specifically this with good results at low load/low rpm......specifically on the k20a3 among others.

There's some data to suggest that being able to control each valve individually has value. For a system as radical as this, I'd think they'd not want to ignore "easy" gains.


I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the obvious, which is that with electro-pneumatic valve control, you can also eliminate the throttle.

...

Oh, well, sure. If you count that one time that Leafy mentioned it. I thought it was obvious that I meant somebody other than him.

(d'oh.)

Yes but is that ONLY because they have a fixed cam that can never change?
These setups can have an cam shape at any rpm whenever they want.

Dann

no the k20a3 opens 1 valve more than the other at lower rpm/load for better swirl/combustion/etc....its that (intake) camp specifically that has this and then opens both same amount when "vtak kicks in bro". lol

The more potent k20a2 on the other hand does it completely differently, so I dunno how effective it is.

pffft K20A3. Get that shit outta here :loser: That shit was done on the D first.
OBD2 D15B had 3 different ways to run the intake valves. One valve opening normally with the other just cracking to induce swirl, both valves opening normally, and high cam "vtec" with more lift and duration. All on one camshaft. It was hilarious looking, all sorts of lobes on that cam.

Edit: Found a pic:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1361693219

Also, fuck i-VTEC, its all about that "Advancted VTEC", assuming it ever sees the light of day:
http://image.hondatuningmagazine.com..._side_view.jpg

But anyway.
I had a similar idea in highschool more or less. Except I was thinking of like an electrical actuator, so it would have control of lift as well, not just duration and timing. Variable lift isnt much of a sacrifice, sure its not ideal to use a super short, high lift profile at low speed, but the benefits would outweigh it. Plus if the engine isnt being designed for performance, you could make the lift small so it was well suited.

My idea way back when would be the ultimate of everything. Infinitely variable lift, duration, and timing of the cams, so it could make the best power possible at any rpm.

I'm curious why hasnt anyone done a spinning blockoff plate with a hole on it instead of a valve system? Like a sliding valve system.

They have, a looooooong time ago.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1361693814

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1361693814

Well i was thinking something the other way. More like a large hockey puck with a hole in it that spins and when the holes align it would be like an "open valve".

Ive seen that as well, but I dont think it worked very well.

This actually has been used for high performance, but because of boring racing rules meant to level the field and snuff out innovation, it hasnt seen any real use. But its definitely been worked on. This article is about a similar system designed for F1 use:
http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign...utoTechBRV.pdf

Cargine concept is very similar to the one FIAT introudced on market in 2009, called MultiAir. No throttle body is used on those engines


In my opinion those pneumatic/modular valve control systems work very well.
I tried this multiair technology driving some cars my company owns (we have one 1.4L 170hp and one 0.9L 85hp): the one which really impressed me is a low-size (two cylinders only) 900cc engine turbocharged, 85hp and it's really surprising how a low cc engine can have such a good driveability and low fuel consumption... of course if you push it hard the fuel consumption goes away from declared one as it suffer for low size (even if it still keeps a good mileage per gallon value compared to the other engines), but I'm satisfied of the result of city and freeway standard driving.
Now there's a new upgrade scheduled for 2013 which brings the power to 101HP... we will see how it works!

Like this?

http://www.liquidforceracing.com/degreewheel.jpg

This is how many 2 stroke rotax (seadoo) engines do it. Video (from 0:40 to 1:40)

This makes me sad.

Not that it's being done by someone other than Koenigseggisseggggnignigsegigisegggnigseggniggsegg , but that they appear to be claiming credit for it.