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Even with variable valve lift and timing technologies developed over the years, there are still constraints on how much control you have over your intake and exhaust valves. For those out of the loop, when we're talking about how much control you have over your valves, we're talking about how much, how long and how far those valve opens.
In most engines, the valves are ultimately controlled by a physical camshaft. While there are different ways to adjust what that camshaft is demanding the valves to do, it's ultimately limited. Though some engines operate sans cams. You'll generally find that these engines designed without camshafts are expensive and usually left for ultra-expensive exotics like those from Koenigsegg and high-rpm racing endeavors like Moto GP Though, one ambitious enthusiast is, well, figuring out how to make a camless engine in his garage.
You might remember Kagan from his unbelievable Harbor Freight engine work from last year. Well, it seems he’s taking what he learned at the small scale and ramping it up to the venerable Mazda MX-5. Oh yeah, and he’s documenting it on his YouTube Channel.
Split into two parts, Kagan is documenting his journey in attempting to adapt what he learned from his Harbor Freight to the more complicated Miata engine, and it is fascinating. Instead of buying a functioning Miata, he opted to snag a 1.8-liter Mazda cylinder head out of a junkyard to do his initial prototyping.
Despite only making it halfway through the journey, we think you’ll get a kick out of watching Kagan work his way through stuffing bolt-on pneumatic valve technology to an older Mazda engine. Check it all out in the video above.
Log into the comments and let us know what you think of Kagan’s work
