Hi everyone & this is my first Question in this forum

I have the following question in my mind but not sure if it could be worked out...

1. Let's say I have a V6 engine.
2. Can I have the camshaft in pieces that can be connected to form a normal camshaft when the engine is running?
3. The basic idea here is to have only one cylinder working when the engine is in idle (saving fuel). The point is that since the other pieces of camshaft are not connected the valves above the other cylinders don't work due to which they are kept unoperated.
4. So the only cylinder that will work is the one where the camshaft rotates above the cylinder.
5. How the camshafts can be connected/disconnected can be done using a switch or depending on the weight in the vehicle that can be controlled electronically/hydraulically.

I'm not sure if the above explains the whole idea of what I have in mind, but I'm willing to give more explanation if you can guide me if this would or would not work. I'm more interested to know the answer, if this doesn't work - why?

Thanks in Advance
Ganesh .R

I could see this happening, but it would take alot of time. Your big problems here would be the timing would have to be changed electronically when you shift out of park into drive and it would probably be a really rough idle like the car shaking alot.
Basically what alot of maunfactors are doing on concepts and some production cars now is Electronically controlled Value timing so you would have optimum power without the cam overlap. So you would have to make the one cylinder values run all the time and then have the rest not doing anything but you would still have the issue of the timing has to be controlled differnetly in park and drive. Then once you would have it in drive the comptuer would tell it to connect the rest of the values and you would be back to the regular engine timing. But since were talking about Electronically controlled value value timing and not regular camshafts it would be possible but with a regular camshaft I can't see it happening unless would would disconnect the other values and change the timing in idle you would need a new computer to do it with so I really can't see it happening unless with the Electronic values or a new timing computer.

I could be wrong, I am still a beginner in all of this but baseing it from what I know that is how thinking would go.

First of all, welcome to the forums !

Its sounds like you're speaking of a variable displacement engine basically. Drop off valves so that you drop cylinders when they're not needed, right?

Sunfire starter has a good point about idling rough. The problem is, at idle you're burning enough fuel to operate the engine with 6 cylinders. If you drop 3 cylinders, you still need enough fuel to operate a 6 cylinder engine. The other pistons are still engaged in the friction but not offering any power to the game. You might end up using more fuel at idle asking fewer cylinders to do the same work.

Cadillac developed and used what they called a V8-6-4. It has hydraulically operated rocker arms that could disengage when not necessary. It operated as a V8 at idle and when power was needed, but part throttle cruise and coasting it would drop down to 6 or 4.

When idling, an engine uses very little fuel so I think more efficiency can be gained by dropping those cylinders at another point.

I like the way you think though. The cams could be linked by a drive pin. One cam could slide back and disengage itself, then when it slides back in it could catch the pin and be back in the correct timing. Mabye a drive cog like a fishing reel. I'll bet you could get some good ideas tearing apart a fishing reel.

remembmer that unless you hold one of the valves open and the other closed you will also jsut be passing freash charge right through the engine and even allowing exaust gasses to go back into the intake charge.... and you wouldnt want to seal both valves off because then not only are your 5 extra pistons causing drag the one piston that is working has to fight hte compresion of the other 5.... it probably wouldnt even run if one measly piston had fight the compresison of 5 cylenders...

Thanks Guys.
I'm bit poor in understanding as I'm not educated in Automobile technology. Pls give me sometime to understand the explanation provided and I will post a reply back.

Thank you all once again.
Ganesh .R