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VTEC is an acronym for Variable valve Timing and lift Electronic Control. It is a mechanism for
optimizing air/fuel mixture flow through the engine.
An internal combustion engine converts the chemical energy stored in fuel into thermal energy.
The increased thermal energy within a cylinder causes the pressure to build. This pressure acts on the pistons and the result
is a mechanical force rotating the crankshaft. This mechanical force is measured as crank torque. The ability for the engine
to sustain a certain level of crank torque at a certain RPM is measured as Power. Power is the rate at which the
engine can do work. This conversion process is not 100% efficient. In fact, only about 30% of the energy stored in the fuel is
actually converted into mechanical energy.
Physics says that for a given efficiency level, a higher rate of fuel consumption is needed for
the engine to generate power. So it becomes obvious that if you
want more power, you need to increase the rate of fuel combustion. One way to achive this goal is to have a bigger engine.
A bigger engine with larger cylinders will be able to combust more fuel per rotation than a smaller engine. Another method
is to pre-presurize the fuel/air mixture and cram it into an existing engine size. Thus even though the cylinder size stays
the same, more fuel is combusted per rotation. This second method is referred to as forced induction.
Honda chose to explore another method: keep the engine size the same, but turn the engine faster
to consume more fuel. Here is an analogy: You want to move foam peanuts from one bucket to another with a cup.
You can increase the size
of your cup, compress/cram as much peanuts as possible into the cup each time, or you can just move the cup faster. All three
methods moves more peanuts. Honda uses the last method. And again, more fuel combusted equals more power generated by the
engine.
As the engine speed is increased, more air/fuel mixture needs to be "inhaled" and "exhaled" by
the engine. Thus to sustain high engine speeds, the intake and exhaust valves needs to open nice and wide. Otherwise you have
what is akin to athsma: can't get enough air/fuel due to restrictions.
If high speed operation is all we have to worry about, Honda wouldn't need to implement VTEC.
Indeed, race engines that operate mostly at high rpms do not utilize any mechanism like VTEC. But street cars used for
daily driving spend most of their time with the engine at low RPMs. Valves that open wide for high RPM operation contributes
to rough operation and poor fuel economy at low RPMs. These undesirable traits are directly against Honda's design goals.
The solution that Honda came up with is the VTEC mechanism: open the valves nice and wide at high
RPMs, but open them not as much at low RPMs. So now you have a engine with smooth operation at low RPMs, and high power output
at high RPMs.
And that is basically what VTEC is. It's nothing magical. The idea has been around for a long
time. Honda's VTEC is just a very simple, elegant and efficient implementation that is extremely effective at achiving its
design goal. Honda automobiles are the first among modern automobiles to utilize this mechanism in such a large scale of
distribution.
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The info on this page is a copy of the webarchive.org pull of www.leecao.com, which at the time of this posting this (10/31/2007) was no longer a valid site.
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