Uncategorized admin on 24 May 2012 12:00 am
What is a Dual Overhead Cam?
Dual overhead cam engines are engines that have two cams above the location of the cams in an overhead valve engine. The dual overhead cam engine has one camshaft that opens the intake valves and one camshaft that opens the exhaust valves.
The overhead design has less mass than the older, overhead valve design. The old design used pushrods to open the valves as the cam turned over. The camshafts were contained in the engine block, instead of on top of it like the overhead cam design. This means that the overhead cam design allows engines to operate at higher speeds than the old design and to be more efficient.I was looking for more information and found it here. The camshaft directly interacts with the rocker arms to open the valves, which reduces the overall moving mass.
A dual overhead cam engine can have anywhere from 3 to 5 valves per cylinder which makes the engine capable of operating at higher speeds. In most cases, the dual overhead cam engine has four valves per cylinder. For a 4-cylinder engine, this means there are 16 valves total. The valves are evenly divided between the intake and exhaust ports. This highly efficient engine design is behind many of the power gains over the years.