[Dexter]

BMW and Siemens as well as Fiat have been working on a camless engine for some time now - with limited success from what I read.

[OBrian-DK]

Damn.... and i thought i was a nerd!!!! You guys in here keep surprising me...

[fededr]

Damn.... and i thought i was a nerd!!!! You guys in here keep surprising me...

I don't like the term "nerd", we prefer to be called "socially challenged" thank you very much!

[The CyberPoet]

I'm late to the party and haven't gotten a chance to read the whole thread because the other half is after me to come cuddle... BUT, here is what I can quickly toss in:

BMW. High tech solenoid driven valves in some of their latest car engines. Might be a good place to start.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[kereeinIR3]

are you dead set on conventional valves? I don't know how much machining of the stock head you are able to do, but have you considered a valve that would not transmit the force of the gas onto the actuator, as it would make your solenoid selection a whole lot easier, and you could use something a lot smaller. For example, something like a cylinder with a gas passageway in it when closed could transfer gas pressure onto a bearing instead of your solenoid and could be rotated with a much smaller actuator than you would need for a straight valve.
There was an exhibit at the New York auto show where they had valves like metal balls, but they were driven like overhead cams. They made a custom head, but all it looked like was a slab of steel with some holes in it, so if you have the resources, it may be a cool idea to consider. Plus you could drive pneumatic actuators off exhaust gas.

nerd pride.

[BarMatt80]

of course some of the european companies are doing it, but hasn't some diesels and the maybe gm wiht some northstar engines?

just keep it documented and us up to date phil.

oh almost forgot, what is the widest tire you are going to run, and just buy a gsxr.

[Londob5]

Why not work on a dual-rotary engine for bikes instead. It sounds like either way you go, its going to take years to finish...and you might get a good deal more power out of dual rotary.

[pistolpete]

Forumla one has tried this, look into that. One of the largest challenges is going to find a solenoid that has enough throw and moves fast enough

[The CyberPoet]

Do you know why the favor for the pneumatic? I'm assuming its just a quicker activation than electric solenoids have developed at this point?

It's a combination of reasons. The primary ones are based on required RPM ranges to get the power they want vs. valve float, plus the fact that it's already an existing field with proven solutions (from the F1 realms). If you need 18k RPM's out of a four-cylinder 800 cc engine [MotoGP], and you need it to last the distance of a race or more (reliably), you only have a few choices about how to keep the valve moving accurately to the cam-curve without jumping enough to shatter the valve stem on landing when it floats AND without decimating the springs (or rendering them ineffective). Pneumatics can provide that fairly easily, although for an 800 cc engine, there has to be a stored source of compressed air on-board for certain low-production RPM's situations (i.e. - initial start-up, hair pin turns where the engine will be throttled way down, certain "caution flag" slow-down scenarios). A number of companies already have heavy investments in pneumatic valve technology (Honda Racing, for example), while others have access to outside firms that are happy to sell the technology (Lotus Engineering comes to mind as a big supplier to MotoGP).

Back to the solenoid questions:

1. Does the solenoid activate the tappet, or does it act directly on the valve stem itself? The best systems I've seen so far use the shaft of the valve stem, and push/pull it with magnetic fields directly. Metallurgy may require some very customized stems for this to work though, ensuring the magnetic properties of the section of valve stem remain fairly constant (or are compensated for) as their temperature increases.

2. Have you considered solenoids on the exhaust and using a different approach to the intake that eliminates the intake valve (direct injection of both the fuel and air via injectors designed for this purpose?).

On a separate note:
Personally, I'd love to see someone build a DID (Direct Injection Diesel) engine for motorcycle use... Given the weight & size of the Kat engine, I suspect it would be feasible to do in the same basic space using a parallel twin instead.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[baddkat]

I'm a Mech. E, this is what I do...

That is great news, let us know when you figure it out.

Camless engine technology long has been a holy grail of engineers from automakers and suppliers. BMW AG, for instance, has spent millions trying to perfect a camless system. But no one has developed a camless engine system that delivers the reliability of the camshaft for anywhere near the same price.
Valeo, a Paris based developer say that they intend to introduce their first proven cam-less engine in 2009 after many years of research, and millions of dollars later. How many investors do you have??

However, you could take it to BMW and they might say, How'd you do that??

Think of Rotary engines, Diesel 2-strokes....

[fededr]

On a separate note:
Personally, I'd love to see someone build a DID (Direct Injection Diesel) engine for motorcycle use... Given the weight & size of the Kat engine, I suspect it would be feasible to do in the same basic space using a parallel twin instead.

Make that a HDI!! I've been driving 1,9 HDI engines on small cars for a while and they're amazing. Electronic commonrail direct injection, turbo intercooler. They're really fun to drive around and they make 20Km/L!
The 1.6L Peugeot HDI engine reaches 143Hp. Diesels are the way to go!!:mrgreen:

[The CyberPoet]

Make that a HDI!! I've been driving 1,9 HDI engines on small cars for a while and they're amazing. Electronic commonrail direct injection, turbo intercooler. They're really fun to drive around and they make 20Km/L!
The 1.6L Peugeot HDI engine reaches 143Hp. Diesels are the way to go!!:mrgreen:

I'd love to see it... Peugeot has no sales in the USA, and so I only see this sort of stuff when I go to Europe.

Then again, the Europeans have the ThunderStar, a 3-cylinder VW TDI (from the Lupo) shoved into a motorcycle frame. The Germans had called the Lupo the 3-liter-special, because it got 100 km on 3 liters of diesel, giving it an effective fuel mileage of about 80 - 84 mpg in the car...

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[baddkat]

Damn.... and i thought i was a nerd!!!! You guys in here keep surprising me...

I dare not take that away from you, from now on, YOU shall be the token nerd.

Think of Rotary engines, Diesel 2-strokes....

I am so surprised that nobody has picked up on this; rotary and 2 stroke diesels are not only cam-less, but they are also valveless. Very reliable and efficient.
Someone else mentioned exploring the rotary engine for bike applications, I think it is a great idea, those rotary engines love high RPMs and develop considerable amount of torque.