automationgame.com

I've learned so much about engines in the last few days!

And there's a peice of trivia that a friend of mine who once worked for Nissan shared, which might be useful as a content update. In the very early days of Variable Valve Timing, it was mechanically controlled, and there was a very complicated mechanical thing (unfortunately this is all I know) that worked out what the timing should be, and controlled the timings. When they switched it over to microprocessor control, VVT became far more reliable, and cheap to manufacture (because instead of 15 or so moving parts for VVT, they just moved the camshaft back and forth, and the cams had a shape that adjusted the timing as the shaft moved).

So in terms of gameplay, VVT should ideally work like fuel injection - there's a mechanical version that gets invented a few years before the electronically-controlled version, and which is worse than the electronic version in pretty much every way.

That would be a viable addition to the game, interesting compromise. It would not be added any time soon but I see no reason not to add it in the content addition phase. Thanks for that!

Some more trivia for your trivia: the system you describe is not, as far as I am aware, used on any production engines to date. The reason for this is simple; it is incredibly difficult to design a follower for a three dimensional cam.

Basically, we have all the means available to control such a system, but haven't yet figured out how to design a metal thing that runs along an oddly-shaped metal thing without shredding itself after a few dozen hours of operation.

The system used in modern VVT engines without VVL is called cam phasing, which involves rotating the entire camshaft relative to the camshaft sprocket with hydraulic pressure. No back-and-forth movements required, but no valve lift or duration adjustments are possible either.

The VTEC system is a electronic system: Valve Timing Electronically Controlled.
I never see a mechanical controlled VVT.

Heh, alright, if it never was put to use it should not be in Automation either xD It would be an interesting thing form a gameplay point of view though.

Alfa Romeo in the 1980s?

I did not know. Thanks.

I looked this in the web (Alfa Romeo 75 TwinSpark and the Alfa Romeo Spider: http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/spider- ... 7-vvt.html).

Thanks for helping me to understand better that conversation I had in 2009, people who actually know things about engines! (As opposed to me, a gamer who once had a conversation about engines.)