Idling Performance under Valve Deactivation Strategy in Port Fuel Injection Engine

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of valve deactivation (VDA) on idling performance in port fuel injection (PFI) engine. The test was conducted on 1.6L, 4-cylinder engine with PFI configuration. One of the two intake valves in each cylinder was deactivated (zero lift on deactivated port) and fuel injector was modified to only provide fuel spray on the active intake port. In-cylinder pressure was recorded by the combustion analyzer in order to measure and analyze the combustion characteristics. From the test, there are up to 6% of fuel consumption improvements across all the test conditions. Better combustion stability is achieved at very low idling speed (throttle position, TP = 2%) as a lower coefficient of variation of engine speed (COVrpm) and coefficient of variation indicated mean effective pressure (COVimep) were recorded. Increased intake velocity and swirl flow in the VDA strategy creates more turbulence intensity causing higher heat release rate and faster combustion. However, there is no significant difference in the pumping work during the intake cycle but there is extra pumping work recorded towards the end of expansion stroke due to the very early end of combustion. Therefore, valve deactivation strategy provides limited positive improvement to the idling performance in PFI engine.