Cylinder deactivation lifters for pushrod Ford engines

[xctasy]

I'm busy at work on my 3-4-5 cylinder deactivation.

Is there any one who makes collapsible lifters like the Chevy and early 4-6-8 Cadillac, or Mopar Eaton lifters for Ford sixes and V-eights?

Roller lifters would be preferable. All the ones I see are made for GM or Chrysler cam profiles and lifter sizes, not Ford ones. I'd rather not have to rebore the lifter galleries to fit non Ford lifters, or grind up another cam to suit the GM or Mopar profiles.

From Morse tests on an I6, I've determined that without valve deactivation,

1 cylinder deactivation out of six at 62 mph is worth 11.1% fuel economy in theory, 3.8% in practice
2 cylinder deactivation out of six at 62 mph is worth 25.0% fuel economy in theory, 8.6% in practice
3 cylinder deactivation at 62 mph is worth 42.6% fuel economy in theory, 14.6% in practice.

Nobody sniffs at 4 more US miles per gallon at a part throttle cruise. With a proper disabled lifter, the economy gains would be far higher.


Along with my 71% aero drag reduction, and 47% taller gearing changes, and 51% compression ratio increase should allow the potential to improve my fuel economy from the US 17 mpg I used get at 62 mph to about 37.5 mpg all going well.

I've got a separate line into three of the 12 lifters to collapse the intake lifter and deactivate it, but I'd really like something better.

 

[rbohm]

i know that in the early 80s ford experimented with the eaton system on the 300. nothing came of it though. perhaps you could contact eaton and see if any of that stuff is still around?

 

[80broncoman]

All Late model Hemi's have them. I don't know the dia? They are all rollers. I know that.

I would NOT worry one bit about Cam profiles being specific to Ford, GM or Mopar roller lifters.

If there was a .000001 difference in rate of lift per degree, will it really be noticed, and one the lifter collapses all will equal again with NO difference.

Would boreing the lifter bores really be that big of a deal going from .874 to .904?

IIRC crane came out with their 1 inch roller(The Roller dia was 1 inch) lifter in the early 90s

They could only be run on older slower ramp profiles. It didn't matter much to the top fuel guys running them because they held up more than 2 seconds.

I'm busy at work on my 3-4-5 cylinder deactivation.
........

are you sure you want to dropout cylinders 3,4 and 5 ?? I think it might sound like a HD big twin motorcycle.

You meant maybe 4,5, and 6?

 

[xctasy]

........

I'm busy at work on my 3-4-5 cylinder deactivation.

are you sure you want to dropout cylinders 3,4 and 5 ?? I think it might sound like a HD big twin motorcycle.

You meant maybe 4,5, and 6?

Nah, a six that goes to 3, 4 or 5 cylinder operation.


I deactivate to make it a 3,4, 5 cylinder i6.

I shoulda called it a 3,4,5 6!

deactivate cylinders 2, 4 and 5 for i3 cylinder operation
deactivate cylinders 2 and 4 for i4 cylinder operation
and deactivate cylinder 2 for i5 cylinder operation

 

[xctasy]

Generally, how much lifter room is there when a hydraulic lifter collapses? The cam grind I'm looking at is a close copy of the wildest SOHC 4.0 camshaft Ford made, with 0.262 net lift at the lobe.

http://www.imperioautopecas.com.br/_arq ... levite.pdf

Type 10 is #229-1918, listed as the respective HSO, the 38 th cam of 56 on page 148 and 149
http://www.tempotopaz.com/main/index.ph ... 79&start=0
http://www.yoyoparts.com/oem/14165565/c ... 91918.html

If I collapse the lifter, what is the maximum lobe lift can I get before it starts to behave like a solid lifter again?

I have planned to use the stock 2.3 HSO cam grind, since the engine will spend a lot of time as a 133 cube, 2.2 liter 4 cylinder, 100 hp engine. It's got everything, a nice wide lobe center, big duration, but low load stress with a mild lift.

Under very low throttle openings, it'll sit as a 100 cube, 1.63 liter 3 cylinder engine.

The basic lifter gallery is pretty easy to drill into and what you do is create an external FE 352-428 side oiler line, and just deactivate the relevant lifters by having a drain back accumulator. Its basically the same as a common rail diesel engine with an independent over run on some of the 12 lifters.

The Argentinians used a slotted lock on there roller conversions to the TC versions, the 3000 cc 183 race, 188 ME/221 SP engines.I could eliminate the external line altogether and just use a solenoid and do it electrically.





The log intake manifold adapter I use is already independent runner, so the three 2-bbl 350 cfm 2300 G Holley carburetor's can have up to one barrel per carb locked off, and the whole intake runner for Cylinders 2,4 and 5 can be locked off in low throttle situations.

The real issue is that I don't want to use non Ford complementary, because it always creates problems. The Ford US stuff works, its had a bizzillion dollars of work, and despite my taking some issues with Dearborn's engineering decisions of late, I'm absolutely never prepared to call any engineering from Ford idiotic.

I can do this without help, but the once I've gotten this sorted, a carb 200 or 250 non cross flow engine will take on a new lease on life with 100% FoMoCo parts.

Other companies have done the donkey work, but the Ford small six is a better base to use than any of the others.

 

[80broncoman]

........

I'm busy at work on my 3-4-5 cylinder deactivation.

are you sure you want to dropout cylinders 3,4 and 5 ?? I think it might sound like a HD big twin motorcycle.

You meant maybe 4,5, and 6?

Nah, a six that goes to 3, 4 or 5 cylinder operation.

I deactivate to make it a 3,4, 5 cylinder i6.

I shoulda called it a 3,4,5 6!

deactivate cylinders 2, 4 and 5 for i3 cylinder operation

deactivate cylinders 2 and 4 for i4 cylinder operation
and deactivate cylinder 2 for i5 cylinder operation

Cylinders 2 and 4 are next to each other in the firing order.

See what it would look like? in that 4cyl mode (Red is dead)
1-5-3-6-2-4

the 3 cyl mode looks like Red is Dead
1-5-3-6-2-4-

in anything but the 3 or 6 cylinder mode the engine WILL be unbalenced and shake.
Cadillac's fix for Rough engine complaints was to install a switch in the glove box that killed the 6 cyl mode so thier 4-6-8 only ran in 4-8-8.

 

[MustangSix]

You want to leave the valves closed when deactivated. The cylinders will continue to compress the air inside, but much of that energy gets recovered, like a spring. This would reduce or eliminate pumping losses and the compression cycle would help create and retain heat in that cylinder during deactivation.

The only good deactivation strategy for an inline six is to make it an inline three, turning off every other cylinder in the firing order. Any thing else would be difficult to operate smoothly.

What the OEM's discovered is that cylinder deactivation was relatively easy, but that the transition from dead to power is software intensive. You have to very carefully meter fuel, spark, and air back into the equation to avoid a jerky response back to power.

 

[xctasy]

Chears.

The actual cylinders I'll lop off will be as you say.

It's not really the matter...I'm trying to suss out a way to easily collapse lifter pressure so the intake valve sits shut. I'm hoping that full bleed down removal will allow 262 thou of cam lobe movement without any valve lift...just the springs should be enough. I might add the exhaust to it.

As for phasing in the ignition, fuel and deactivation/reactivation, its really simple...the JDM Mitsubishi Mirage MCA Jet 4G12 1410cc operated its 2 cylinders as you described.

 

[MustangSix]

Cadillac simply used a solenoid to lift the fulcrum point on the lifter. The cam and rocker still operated as normal, but there was no valve action. If you used an eccentric on the rocker shaft you could rotate it to lift the rockers.

One of the biggest problem areas they had was fuel puddling in the intake runners during a deactivation cycle. They were using a TBI instead of port injection.

 

[rbohm]

Cadillac simply used a solenoid to lift the fulcrum point on the lifter. The cam and rocker still operated as normal, but there was no valve action. If you used an eccentric on the rocker shaft you could rotate it to lift the rockers.

One of the biggest problem areas they had was fuel puddling in the intake runners during a deactivation cycle. They were using a TBI instead of port injection.

i believe ford did the very same thing with the eaton system they were testing. as i recall they used both a carbed engine and an efi engine, and on the efi engine they shut down the fuel injectors as well to avoid the fuel puddling issue.

 

[80broncoman]

Cadillac simply used a solenoid to lift the fulcrum point on the lifter. The cam and rocker still operated as normal, but there was no valve action. If you used an eccentric on the rocker shaft you could rotate it to lift the rockers.

One of the biggest problem areas they had was fuel puddling in the intake runners during a deactivation cycle. They were using a TBI instead of port injection.

That is right, I had forgotten about it, but the Caddy 4-6-8 had these TALLL bulges on top of the valve covers over the cylinder that were deactivated.

 

[MustangSix]

This could possibly be done in an analog, purely mechanical way.

If you made the rocker shaft eccentric on the three cylinders you wanted to deactivate, then a solenoid or vacuum operated cylinder could rotate the shaft. That would move the rocker beyond the range of motion of the camshaft. You would need to install something to hold the pushrod, rocker, and lifter together until the cylinder was reactivated. Possibly you could tie them all together with spring clips so that the lifter, pushrod, and rocker assembly get lifted beyond the cam lobe as a unit.

This could be a simple as a load based device with a simple vacuum motor that pulls those cylinders and their respective injectors offline until load increases. Not the smartest system, but under low load it could be effective. it would work much like a load based 4bbl carburetor secondary.

A vacuum motor may not be robust enough, though. It may take a worm drive to prevent the shaft from rotating under load. That could still be switched on/off with vacuum and some limit switches. A simple micro switch could kill injector power until just at the point of valve reactivation.

You would probably need to add some sort of inhibit switch to prevent this from actuating at idle. That could be placed on the throttle itself and could be set to activate only above a set throttle opening. That would allow all six to fire at idle or on coast, helping keep engine temps normal.

 

[xctasy]

Thanks a bunch. Top based locking stuff is pretty tall..

10 year old technology from GM's toggling V4 to V8 system does indeed eliminate the V6 cycle, and when applied to something light like a 6 liter Corvette, it saves a 16.7% cost in fuel at 65 mph if it could be equipped with with a special drone removing muffler. 35 US mpg verses 30 US mpg.

http://www.superchevy.com/technical/eng ... 5sc_gmdod/

GM 5300 "DOD" Displacement On Demand cylinder deactivation...General details and Patented Eaton roller lifter

I'd just like not to have to re-sleeve it down 1/32" to 0.8422" to suit the LZ8 or the 5.3L LH6 roller lifter above. Or have my cam grinder massage the existing HSO cam profile master to suit a roller cam.

Operationally, the LH6 always deactivates the same four cylinders in the firing order (1, 4, 6 and 7). According to Meaghan, lifter design and pushrod length are the same for all eight cylinders, but camshaft lobe profiles are different for the cylinders, which are deactivated. (This seems, in part, to contradict the GM media website, which states, "...in displacement-on-demand equipped engines, half of the cylinders have unique two-piece valve lifters..." -this being an important stipulation for those wanting to swap camshafts.)

For hot rodders wanting to modify their DOD-equipped LH6s, it's important to know that the switching lifter has a lift limitation of 15mm (at the valve). The factory cam uses 12.2mm of that (about .480 inch), giving the LH6 a theoretical valve lift limit of .590 inch. It's worth noting that this limit is for the lifter; a different valve spring would almost surely have to be used at this valve lift. Interestingly, it seems possible to grind a custom camshaft, which would only provide increased lift and duration to the non-DOD cylinders (2, 3, 5 and 8), thus allowing higher lift with standard non-switching lifters in those cylinders.

PHR would like to thank Tom Read of GM product communications for arranging the interview with Chris Meagher

Read more: http://www.superchevy.com/technical/eng ... z31vX7PzHE

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2MH01pLNX8

Why is it that Chevy parts are always the ones to use?

I guess the collapsible lifter above is the best option. BlQQdy Ch**y part number #2569256 CA 1139....0.842".

Eaton's HR-384 but with an external spring as in page 5 of 8 on the http://www.eaton.com/ecm/groups/public/ ... -guide.pdf catalog, but several US Patents such as US6802288 and US7308879.

http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc5 ... 802288.jpg

http://www.google.com.lb/patents/US7308879

Chevy GM 4200 cylinder sleeves, now lifters. May-bee I should shove on a twin cam GM 4200 or Ford Barra 4 liter head on and be done with it.

 

[80broncoman]

...........

I'd just like not to have to re-sleeve it down 1/32" to 8.422" to suit the LZ8 or the 5.3L LH6 roller lifter above. [size=5]Or have my cam grinder massage the existing HSO cam profile master to suit a roller cam. [/size]

Operationally, the LH6 always deactivates the same four cylinders in the firing order (1, 4, 6 and 7). According to Meaghan, lifter design and pushrod length are the same for all eight cylinders, but camshaft lobe profiles are different for the cylinders, which are deactivated. (This seems, in part, to contradict the GM media website, which states, "...in displacement-on-demand equipped engines, half of the cylinders have unique two-piece valve lifters..." -this being an important stipulation for those wanting to swap camshafts.)
........

on the bold. The simplest setup may be to convert the whole engine to roller cam & lifter. I'm sure you can find a roller cam profile that is very close to that target profile that you want.



Most that do cam swaps here in the US on the Hemis and GM DOD engines use a tuner and either turn off the DOD or replace the special lifters with standard lifters.

 

[xctasy]

Everything is a non brainer for us six cylinder guys. The solution is the Flint and Dearborn engineers were on the same page all the time.

The whole thing that makes cylinder deactivation work is injection, or in my case, an independent runner carburetor system where a jet can be deactivated. Getting increased mechanical advantage under half or 2/3rds the cylinder operation is pretty simple with a solenoid to reduce the radius of the accelerator cable pivot point...normally its about 1.4375" on a stock 1-bbl. but can be brought down to increase the amount of throttle action by the same simple spring action that deactivates a lifter. All that is easy and simple.

What really hacks me off is that for the sake of a missing Small Block Ford factory push-rod engine deactivation part, I have seen 93, 61.3, or 37 thou wall thickness bronze sleeve for a less than 800 micron smaller diameter GM lifter and a custom cam profile to suit. A lot of messin' around for sure. B H J Products makes rough sizes are 0.843, 0.875, 0.906, and 0.937 sizes commonly, but the lifter bore is either 1.00 or 1.062, so the wall thickness can be anything from 31.5 to 123 thou, and SAE 660 bronze or A 48 Cast iron. Stock LS lifter is about 0.8422", so a special insert has to be made. Dang!


Its a case of "a miss is a mile". The reality is the best LS Chevy roller rockers ohv engines use tall deck 9.48" Windsor SBF technology with Mustang GT 5.0/Cleveland/Boss 302 and 351 firing order and very advance rips offs of the GT, E and B cam roller cam profiles.

That really makes it all too easy to find a cam profile, heaps easier.

Due to peak rocker ratios always being variable in practice, there are differing cams specs, some are 10 to 12 thou higher than the stock advertised lifts. Looks like I'll copy the next cam up on the stock 4.8 and 5.3 offering, which was a 457 (469 intake) thou cam to the to the better LH6 cam of 492 thou (or 500 thou) found on the 5.3 liter DOD LS Chevy cam. There are 1.8:1 rocker ratios around, capable of taking things to 521 to 529 thou, and all Chevy parts. I might wind back lobe center to 112 from the stock LS series 116 to 117.5 item. The LSA cam is a 122.5 lobe center item that has 480 lift, and would be a great combo on a tighter lobe center version of the 09 to 13 Holden based Cadillac CTS-V LSA supercharged engine.

Details of what the early 325 cubic inch 5.3 LH6 had in them is in http://www.fastfieros.com/tech/vortec_5 ... _iv_v8.htm

For other details on how much potential the cam and displacement was in a 5.329 liter 325 cubic inch engine, is here.
http://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-h ... nes-2.html

Incidentally, in an inline 6, it would be a 3.996 liter 244 cube I6. The so called 4.8 liter (4.855 liter 296 cube engine) would be 3.641 liter 222 cube I6.

The factory heads have similar flow to a stock set of Classic Inline Alloy's, or a heavily worked set of 250 X-flows

For factory Chevy LS cam profiles, see page 243 electronic or 241 listed

http://www.chevrolet.com/content/dam/Ch ... atalog.pdf

The cam profiles are a total outworking of the smartest brains in the business, but they still look like what was being done in the early 90's before Ford Dearborn axed Windsor OHV SBF roller cam and head development in the last GT40P engines in around 1996. The 5.7 Chevy looks a lot like the US Roush DEVELOPED, Australian previewed Falcon EA GT 351 engine from 1991 that was released by Saleen in 1995. The last factory 2002-2003 Australian built but ex Mountaineer/Explorer 5.0 liter GT40P block which was what the 347 stroker 5.6 liter 335 hp engine was based on looks a heck of a lot like a short deck iron LS series 5.3 and 5.7 to me.

When I reseached the 289 and 5.0 roller cam profilees back in 2012, I cam to the same conclusion I do with the Chevy cam profiles...its the same thing all over again.