by Begle1 » Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:43 am
What would any of today's cars be worth if they were being made in 1988? Today we have better materials, better tolerances, way more electronics, et cetera. A $20,000 Chevy Cobalt would probably cost $100,000 in 2008.
A ton of cars today use cam-powered valvetrains with variable-valve-timing or variable-cam-timing contraptions that are very complicated; VTEC, VVL, MiVEC, VANOS, VVTL, NVCS, on and on.
A high pressure oil system would remove the camshafts, the lifters, the pushrods, the rockers, the finger followers, the timing belt and all the crap in the variable valvetrain contraptions.
In all of that stuff's place, it would have a high pressure oil pump, which I don't think would need to be any bigger or fancier than what's found on HEUI Diesel systems, and a big solenoid for each valve. And some kind of seal that would let the high pressure oil open the valve a 40 times a second.
The system would likely be more expensive due to the tolerance required in the HPOP system, but the ability to let an engine make peak torque at every speed would mean that engine would need less cylinders and less displacement, and that would help recoup losses. And I don't see it becoming close to as complicated as some of the exotic valve trains around today.
I find it hard to believe that nobody's made a oil-pressure-operated valvetrain yet. I wouldn't think that the task demanded of the HPOP would be any more difficult to meet than the task demanded of a modern injection pump.
Hell, use a common-rail HPOP to open valves. There we go.
1990 D-250 Regular Cab: Tweaked injection pump, built transmission, a cataclysmic charlie foxtrot of electronics, the most intense street-ran water injection system in the country, and some more unique stuff.