Making Internal Combustion Engines Better With More Valves

When it comes to internal combustion engines (ICEs), it’s generally accepted that each cylinder doesn’t have more valves to let in a fresh fuel mixture and to exhaust the aftermath …. Making Internal Combustion Engines Better With More Valves. You could argue in favor of this also because it reduces the amount of valve seat surface and thus the potential for leaks, but there is historical precedent for higher valve counts.

Hence [Alexander’s Laboratory] had to give a ten-valve engine a shake, just to see what effect adding more valves has. A cited historical example is the Yamaha FX750, which features a four-cylinder engine that has three inlet and two outlet valves per cylinder, making for a 20-valve design that is claimed to improve performance, also because each valve can be smaller and lighter than with a single valve per side. Other motorbike manufacturers would also try such configurations, with some fascinating examples shown in the video.

What [Alexander] tries here is to create a 10-valve version, for a symmetric five valves intake and five for exhaust. Rather than building an entire engine from scratch, the largely 3D-printed ICE that was featured in previous videos will be modified with a new cylinder head, replacing the current four-valve one. For the custom valves large wood screws are used, after making sure that they can take the heat of the combustion.