- When carburetors were replaced with fuel injection,
the people of the 1970s were blown away.
What? Computers?
There's no way it works.
But it did.
And today, manufacturers rely on electronics
to precisely inject fuel into the cylinders.
But air, air gets sucked in with less precision.
It's sitting over there with electrical jealousy.
So what if someone took the same principle for fuel
and applied it to air?
Well, that's exactly what a company called Freevalve did.
And it's a tech that makes Koenigsegg so fuel efficient,
while at the same time being stupid quick.
But Freevalve isn't as exotic as you might think.
So today, we're gonna show you how it works
and how you can get it for way cheaper than a Koenigsegg.
Let's Freevalve, boys!
Woo!
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Big thanks to Keeps for sponsoring today's video.
Good morning, class.
I'm your substitute teacher, Mr. Uncle Jerry.
And today we're gonna learn all about science.
(bird chirping)
Oh, a math class. Okay.
Okay. Well, here's a problem for you.
If I'm one out of the two or three guys
to experience some form of male pattern baldness
by the time I'm 35, how many guys are there?
Yes.
Three.
Oh, very good.
That's right, Jeremiah.
You are so smart and handsome.
One day, you're gonna host a science show about cars,
and you're gonna throw up a whole vat of cream cheese
on a fancy girl at a fancy party.
But anyways, where was I?
(bird chirping)
Thank you, Dave. Okay.
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For those of you who don't know,
Koenigsegg has been on the absolute bleeding edge
of go-fast tech for years.
They're making the same power with three cylinders
that Lamborghini makes with 10,
but their best innovation is Freevalve.
And as the name would suggest,
Freevalve is a system where the valves are free.
In a traditional engine, the valves are pushed open
in a sequence indirectly by the lobes of the camshaft.
As the camshaft spins, the lobes push on a rocker
or bucket lifter or something similar
that then pushes on the valve stem,
forcing the valve down into the cylinder
and letting air in or exhaust out.
This opening and closing has to be perfectly timed
so that the valves are open when you want to move air,
but close when you want combustion.
Now, there are two sets of valves.
You've got intake valves for clean air coming in
and you got exhaust valves
for the combustion exhaust going out.
The camshafts are timed using a timing chain or a belt.
The timing chain is driven by the crankshaft,
which is driven by the movement of the pistons
as they get pushed up and down during combustion.
So when a piston moves, it moves the crankshaft,
which moves the timing chain, which moves the camshaft,
which moves the rockers, which move the valve.
Now this has gotten us by for quite some time,
but there are a few problems with these old camshafts.
Since the timing is tied to the movement of the crankshaft,
as the crank spins faster,
the valves are actually open for less time.
The lobes open the valves for a percentage
of the camshaft's rotation.
So as your RPMs get higher,
that window of time gets shorter.
You're getting the least amount of air
when you need it the most.
So to solve for that in the past,
there have been more aggressive cams.
Cams with bigger lobes that push the valve open more
and keep them open for longer.
But now you're getting too much air
when the car is at low revs
and you need a lot of fuel
to keep your combustion ratios from bleeding out.
So how do you make a cam that can make power at top end
while still being fuel efficient at the low end?
Well, one bandaid on the problem
has been variable valve timing.
There are a few ways to do this
and every manufacturer does it differently.
But one of the most straightforward versions
is Honda's VTEC.
We've done plenty of videos explaining VTEC before,
but the quick and simple explanation
is that VTEC cams have two sets of lobes.
At low RPMs, only the rockers touching
the normal lobes are active.
But once that RPM crosses a certain threshold,
a pin locks in the rocker for the more aggressive lobes,
and the sudden change is when VTEC kicks in yo.
(growling) (car engine growling)
But VTEC is only two cam profiles.
What if you had an infinite number of cam profiles?
Well, this is part of what makes Freevalve so special.
Instead of a cam shaft,
each valve gets an individually,
electronically controlled actuator.
Now. instead of valve lift and duration
being determined mechanically,
it is determined electronically.
So Freevalve is a map of every optimal state
for every valve in any situation.
And that might sound complicated,
but it's really very similar to a fuel map
or fuel injectors.
It's a valve map.
So Freevalve lets the valves do their thing
independent of the RPMs of the crankshaft,
and there are a lot of benefits to a system like this.
Main one, as we mentioned is multiple cam profiles,
but it goes even further than that.
The precision of actuated valves is so high
because the valves have been digitized.
When we talk about digital versus analog,
the best example I know is to look at radio wave.
An analog radio wave gradually increases and decreases
and is constantly changing, while a digital wave is binary.
It's either on or off.
Now, imagine if these waves were on a graph.
The graph shows valve position over time.
With the analog signal,
the valve takes time to gradually open to its peak
and then starts to close right away again.
With the digital wave however,
the valve can instantly open to its full lift,
stay at the specific height, then close again instantly.
The digital wave is much more controlled and precise.
So the camshaft was our analog signal.
And if you can imagine a camshaft spinning down our graph,
you can see how the lobe would match up
with our analog wave.
But the actuators are sending a digital signal.
And while the valves themselves still need
a little bit of time to open and close,
the signal is much closer to a binary one
and can therefore let in more air more precisely
in the same amount of time.
Over a traditional camshaft engine,
if you keep all other parts the same
and just swap to a free valve set up,
your engine can make 30% more power
and 30% more torque.
But power isn't the only thing you gain
with actuated valves.
You also gain throttle response.
I guess I shouldn't say throttle response,
because it's not the throttle that's doing anything.
Let me explain.
Normally, when you step on the throttle pedal,
a butterfly valve opens in your intake.
That's your throttle.
That lets air into the intake manifold,
which leads to the valves.
The valves are opening and closing to let air in.
But as we already established,
their movement is based on the RPMs,
not on the throttle pedal itself.
But in a Freevalve engine,
the valves are electronically controlled.
So they can be controlled by the throttle pedal.
There's no need for a throttle body or intake manifold.
And since you don't need cams or a timing chain,
the head is also a lot smaller.
So with all that junk out of the way,
our Freevalve engine can be smaller
and the throttle response goes through the roof.
Imagine the benefit you would get
from individual throttle bodies
just amped up a couple levels.
Like me, Jeremiah, when I'm on sugar.
The air is right there when you ask for it with your foot
and it goes directly into your cylinders.
Now, this sounds super aggressive like Canaan
and powerful like me,
but if you're not impressed by speed and power,
then the Freevalve engine has one more trick up its sleeve,
especially for turbocharged engines.
For most cars, the worst pollution comes at cold start.
That's when your catalytic converter hasn't warmed up yet.
The materials inside the cat that react
with harmful emissions in your exhaust,
rhodium, palladium platinum,
they work best at high temperatures.
The higher the temperature,
the faster the molecules move
and the quicker these molecules ionize and bond.
On cold start, the engine runs a little higher on idle
to get some heat to the catalytic converters,
and it'll take a few minutes for them to really get working.
For turbo-charged cars, you can't send too much heat
down your exhaust because you might damage a turbo.
Rapid heating or cooling of any part of your engine
is never a good thing,
as it can cause metal fatigue and brittleness.
The catalytic converter is pretty much
the only exception to this.
So how do you heat the cat without risking the turbo?
Well, Freevalve has a cool way around this.
On Koenigseggs, only half the exhaust outlets
feed the turbo.
The rest flow to the exhaust directly.
Since the valves can be individually controlled,
the ones leading to the turbo can stay closed on cold start,
and the ones leading to the catalytic converter
can start opening earlier.
So early that the combustion in the cylinder
isn't totally done, and the flame travels into the exhaust
heating the cat.
Because of this, Freevalve engines
have an increase fuel efficiency of 15%
and lower emissions by 30%.
They're literally doing their part for their environment
by shooting flames out the exhaust.
It's pretty sick.
I'm doing my part for the environment
by trying to engineer a car to run off farts.
I'm not joking.
We're really working on that here at "B2B."
If you wanna see it in action,
put a comment down below.
And controlled exhaust valves also means
that your turbocharger doesn't need a wastegate.
The air going to the turbo can be perfectly metered
by controlling the lift of the valves feeding the turbo.
Also, it's one less thing in the engine bay.
So a Freevalve engine is even smaller.
No cams, no lifters, no timing chain,
no intake manifold, no throttle, no wastegate.
Just ones and zeros and power.
I know what you're thinking, I'm a psychic.
All this programming, all these electronics,
all this tech, it's gotta be pretty expensive.
Well, not really.
Koenigsegg developed this technology for their hyper cars,
started the Freevalve company and did all that R&D,
but that was five years ago.
And again, this is not actually that crazy of a concept.
I actually three years ago was like,
hey, why don't they have electronically controlled valves?
And I googled it and I was like,
"Oh, someone already (beep) did it."
It's exactly what we came up with 50 years ago
for fuel injection, just applied to valves
instead of injectors.
Freevalve has been looking for customers
to apply this technology to an economy car engine,
and they even did a little work
with a Chinese manufacturer, Qoros.
Qoros.
Qoros!
Qoros.
I hope I got that right.
But regardless of what Koenigsegg does
with their proprietary tech,
the concept is still fairly straightforward.
Heck, if you were determined enough,
you can maybe even put this together in your own garage.
And I'm not making that stuff up.
I mean, someone has literally done this in their garage.
This is Wesley Kagan.
He's been messing around with actuated valves in his garage
for the last year.
- That's closer than I thought I was gonna be.
- Wesley's build is proof that actuated,
independently controlled valves is something
that any OEM could put in a car.
- One of the things I really tried to do
is not use any exotic materials or try to use any materials
that would have caused any issues.
So the 3D printed parts are actually
a high-temp PLA that I used.
The solenoids and the cylinders that I used
for the control software are basically off the shelf.
But yeah, I mean, I built it in a two-car garage
in the suburbs.
- Wesley has even made the CAD files
from his Miata project available for free.
So if you're an enthusiast or you're an engineer
or an executive at Mazda, you should check them out,
but maybe it's too late.
Maybe the electric takeover
is gonna put any of this Freevalve stuff to bed early.
And I know Jobe has moved on to the E36
with "Money Pit," but the Miata is not dead.
So maybe we do this on our own Miata.
Put a comment down below if you'd like to see that.
Thank you guys so much for watching this episode of "B2B."
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Follow me @Jeremiah Burton.
And until next week,
bye for now.