Cylinder head with valve deactivators
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsJohn Christopher Riegger, Theodore Beyer, Jeff D. Fluharty
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
To improve fuel efficiency, some gasoline engines are equipped with valve deactivators in some of the cylinders so that at low torque conditions only a subset of the total number of cylinders are active. In prior art engines, particularly when they have four valves per cylinder, space is tight. It is known to provide a cam carrier in the head between the cylinder head and the camshaft. The cylinder head bolts pass through the head under the cam carrier. According to the present disclosure, the cam carrier, and its associated disadvantages, is obviated by widening the bearings for the camshafts, using smaller diameter head bolts, and putting the orifices for the head bolts directly through the bearings.
Claims16
A cylinder head assembly of an internal combustion engine, comprising:
- a cylinder head comprising:
- a plurality of combustion chambers tops each having two intake and two exhaust valves;
- cam towers unitarily formed with the cylinder head;
- and
- an intake camshaft having multiple cam lobes that act upon the intake valves via intake followers disposed in the cylinder head wherein at least a first portion of the intake followers are deactivatable and a second portion of the intake followers are fixed.
An internal combustion engine, comprising:
- a cylinder block;
- a cylinder head comprising:
- cam towers unitarily formed with the cylinder head;
- semicircular bearings located between pairs of cam towers, the semicircular bearings having orifices disposed therein;
- cylinder head bolts inserted in the orifices that engage with the cylinder block;
- and
- an intake camshaft cradled in a plurality of the intake camshaft having multiple cam lobes that actuate intake valves disposed in the cylinder head via intake followers wherein at least a portion of the intake followers are deactivatable wherein:
- the engine has an engine bank having four cylinders;
- intake valves in a first and a second of the four cylinders are provided with deactivatable intake followers;
- and
- intake valves in a third and a fourth of the four cylinders are provided with fixed intake followers.
An internal combustion engine, comprising:
- a cast cylinder head having combustion chamber tops and a plurality of cam towers, the cam towers having bearing surfaces each having an orifice defined in the bearing surfaces;
- an engine block to which the cylinder head is bolted with bolts passing through the orifices in the bearing surfaces of the cam towers;
- and
- followers mounted in the cylinder head wherein at least half of the followers are deactivatable followers wherein:
- the cylinder head has four combustion chamber tops;
- each combustion chamber top has two intake valves and two exhaust valves disposed therein;
- and
- half of the intake valves and half of the exhaust valves are provided with the deactivatable followers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.