Quote:
Originally Posted by Denny McLain
Watched the video of how the Variable Valve Timing works several times and still can't figure it out. However, can you control lift via programming? Shortening cam duration will increase lower end power while increasing it will pick up on top. If the factory has duration work out, how about lift? More lift will add to the top end increase. Does the system work that way?
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Not yet, it's far simpler than it seems in that video, but there are going to be issues. First off this is a totally new thing for piston motors. The functionality of it is far more complicated than just lift, it changes the entire dynamics of the motor itself. It's not a simple as VTEC or cam adjustments. Also the way it is used by the ecu vs throttle. Nissan has millions of dollars spent on this technology and there isn't anything currently available to reference it against.
I'm sure some company will jump out there and add software controls for it, and customers will suffer with poorly running cars because of it. Or the customer will have to come out of pocket when parts of the VVEL system start failing. Thats just not how we want to do business.
So once we have a bit better understanding of what controls we can find, along with physical limits of the system (endurance testing) we'll start to create software to control it. You probably won't see anything like that for a while though. The engineers at Nissan really have gotten so much out of it so far, we're not sure of what gains may even be capable if any.