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 tor the head bolts directly through the bearings.
Claims20
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 portion of the followers are deactivatable.
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 bearings having orifices disposed therein;
- cylinder head bolts inserted in the orifices that engage with the cylinder block;
- a camshaft cradled in a plurality of the bearings and having a plurality of cam lobes that act upon valves;
- and
- an intake camshaft having multiple cam lobes that act valves disposed in the cylinder head via intake followers wherein at least a portion of the followers are deactivatable.
A method to assemble an engine, comprising:
- casting a cylinder head that comprises combustion chamber tops and a plurality of cam towers, the cam towers having bearing surfaces each having an orifice defined in the bearing surfaces;
- bolting the cylinder head to an engine block with bolts passing through the orifices in the bearing surfaces of the cam towers;
- and
- installing followers in the cylinder head, at least half of the followers being deactivatable followers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.