Originally posted by Feliks
My vision change compression ratio or intake timing....
Been there, done that, in about 1980 - Porche subsequently thought to Patent something similar some 10 years later.
My original drawings, done in RoboSolid, were published in a short lived Auto Technology magazine. It took me about 5 minutes to think of the idea - I thought that it was so simple, someone must have already done it, so I never applied for a Patent! In my design for Twin Cams there was a left to right slider which varied the phase of both cams in relation to the crankshaft, and a third roller between the cams which could, in conjunction with the lateral control, phase the camshafts in relation to each other and the crankshaft at the same time. I belive that I have the drawings on a 5.25" floppy, but I'm not sure I have a programme that can read them anymore - the magazine is, I think, somewhere in the loft under nearly 20 years of dust!
I also did two further designs using a) a differential, and b) epicyclic gears.
The differential system works like this:
Assume an old fashioned back axle, lock the propshaft and turn the RH wheel, the LH rotates in the opposite direction at the same speed as the RH wheel, right? If you lock the RH wheel and rotate the propshaft one revolution, the LH wheel rotates about 1/4 of a turn (Assuming a 4:1 Diff ratio), agreed? If you rotate the RH wheel so that the LH wheel is turning, then rotate the propshaft 1/4, turn the LH wheel will still be rotating at the same speed as the RH wheel, but 90 degrees out of phase. Now imagine that the RH wheel is the Timing Gear driven by the crankshaft, and the LH wheel is the camshaft, and that your Pinion Gear is servo controlled, and Bob's your Uncle.
The Epicyclic system is very similar, the Sun Gear is on the Camshaft, the Planetary gears are driven from the Crankshaft, and the phasing is servo controlled via the Ring Gear.
The latter two systems are so much simpler than the oil pressure driven Alfa Romeo system, using a helical plunger, that originally caused me to consider methods, that I again assumed that they had already been thought of - I could have been rich; rich I tell you: rich beyond the dreams of avarice - or ripped off by the big boys.........