Finally - decoupling the valves
 

Purdue Univ. has announced that they have a way to operate the valves independently of the crank & pistons...


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070510093248.htm

Looks like Brunell U. in London (UK) is doing work on Variable Valve Actuation.

Electro-Mechanical and Electro-Hydraulic
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/sed/sedres/ee/cerg/projects/scre

Renault pioneered the use of pneumatic valves...what maybe 15 years ago? I have no idea how sophisticated they are now, but before the new rules McLaren was able to adjust the timing, mixture, valve timing, and fuel delivery to each individual cylinder on their MP4 15 and 16 from the pits.

hmm...I was a little off on the dates. At least I was right on when they started winning with the pneumatic valves.

Turns out they're working on electromatic valve timing that would further decouple the valve timing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_valve_gear

ive seen an engine with electro actuated (by way of a soleniod) valves in the mid 90s. strictly electronic, no mechanical connection.

This appears to be a model of how the valves ought to be actuated - it is dynamic (means hard to do!) rather than an equilibrium conditions model.

I didn't see anything about what mechanism they intended to use -- could just mean it is secret tho.

Any new technology, old technology, or last week's recipe for rigatoni pescarosomethingrather .....anything and everything in Formula One would be secret.

That's very interesting, and Purdue is just the right place to pioneer this effort - their defensive secondary has been operating independently of the line for as long as I can remember.

Go Hawkeyes.

magneti marelli usa has some stuff about it on it's website... solenoid activated valves and what not

i'm sure it's a great DYI project to whip up an ECU map for ignition , valve timing and fuel delivery... sounds like a right laugh...

there's also the different head that works with a piston instead of a valve, and then there's also the engine design that does away with the connection rods and use some kind of rotating disks

all promise to be the next best thing , with 40-50 and more % improvement in power and fuel economy
but for some odd reason not a single big car builder is actually building them...

untill i see it in use , in a production , consumer car, i'll consider it hot air

Research isn't hot air. By definition anything being researched is not yet out there. If it's already been done then it isn't research. Hence the famous (or infamous) scientist/engineer joke.

defcon - most hilarious post of the week!

While the potential is enormous, (and therefore it should be developed further) one would say they need REALLY robust software: You never want to see "Bent Valves" as one of the ECU error codes. ;)