Engine induction mod': interesting reading (hopefully)

[jorgy]

Hi all

I'd bumped on these pages by luck at about summer time and always ment to post here as I though some will find it interesting, so here it is. I found it very intriguing myself, see what this mad (?) (greek) guy has come up with -it's a team of 3 brothers, actually:

http://www.pattakon.com/pattakonRod.htm

It's effectively a continuously variable valve-lift system, like the Vanos of BMW, only that it's 100% mechanical, just controlled directly from the gas pedal. They claim perfect idling at 350rpm (350rpm), ridiculously low emissions, and the way the Renault Energy 1.4 here revs to 7,000rpm is quite amazing (was driving one for years!).The fact that engine breathing is continuously adjusted from the valves' lift, also means that you can use much deeper lifts -basically, as much as the basic engine bits will allow. It's characteristic that, when demonstrating his modified Honda V-Tec to V-tec fans in Greece, people kept on asking "so where's the V-Tec point?? I can't feel any power explosion!!" -seems some people really need a "powerful punch" to get straight! lol From what he writes on the site, the way manufacturers (Honda, BMW) go about controlling their variable valve lift looks really unnecessarily difficult and expensive, but maybe somebody will be able to comment better than me.

They've been running 2 cars on a daily basis for years as such and a couple more are being converted -a Peugeot 16s. You will need some patience to read this, but having read all the pages has made me realise even better what a constraint the induction systems are for an engine. I can now fully undesrtand why BMW's latest engines are so frugal yet powerful.

From things he's posted all over the net in various fora, I think he's both on the wrong road with regards to his business plan objectives, and with regards to how to achieving them. They aim to sell their patent to established automotive manufacturers, while I think there's a huge aftermarket opportunity waiting to happen. They don't seem focused either -the CVVL idea looks great and just almost ready to commercialise -they perhaps need to throw some electronics in the mix although it works well as such apparently (the bit I'm thinking might need electronic control is the regulation of "full-throttle" when at lower revs, prob some reduction to actual valve opening with fly-by-wire would yield better acceleration given how deeply the valves can open on such an engine).

He's not a good communicator either (I think) -he typically ends up arguing with everybody wherever he writes. He's not convincing either because although he provides all sort of very technical graphs, he has never provided any dyno graph -wonder why, it's obvious he's genuine, having put all that effort. I definitely plan to visit and talk to them next time I'm there -and test drive maybe!

Hope u enjoy reading!

cheers
George