- When carburetors were
replaced with fuel injection, the people of the 1970s were blown away. What? Computers? There's no way it works. But it did. And today, manufacturers
rely on electronics to precisely inject
fuel into the cylinders. But air, air gets sucked
in with less precision. It's sitting over there
with electrical jealousy. So what if someone took
the same principle for fuel and applied it to air? Well, that's exactly what a
company called Freevalve did. And it's a tech that makes
Koenigsegg so fuel efficient, while at the same time being stupid quick. But Freevalve isn't as
exotic as you might think. So today, we're gonna
show you how it works and how you can get it for
way cheaper than a Koenigsegg. Let's Freevalve, boys! Woo! (upbeat music) Big thanks to Keeps for
sponsoring today's video. Good morning, class. I'm your substitute
teacher, Mr. Uncle Jerry. And today we're gonna
learn all about science. (bird chirping) Oh, a math class. Okay. Okay. Well, here's a problem for you. If I'm one out of the two or three guys to experience some form
of male pattern baldness by the time I'm 35, how
many guys are there? Yes. Three. Oh, very good. That's right, Jeremiah. You are so smart and handsome. One day, you're gonna host
a science show about cars, and you're gonna throw up
a whole vat of cream cheese on a fancy girl at a fancy party. But anyways, where was I? (bird chirping) Thank you, Dave. Okay. Keeps makes hair loss prevention easy by giving you access
to real doctors online. Plus they'll ship you
your hair loss medication directly to your door every three months. So start your lessons
in hair loss preventions from home today. Go to keeps.com/b2b or click
the link in the description to receive 50% off your first order. And if you don't, you could
end up looking like this. I know. It's disgusting. And the mustache is not making up for it. I tried. (laughs) (soft music) For those of you who don't know, Koenigsegg has been on
the absolute bleeding edge of go-fast tech for years. They're making the same
power with three cylinders that Lamborghini makes with 10, but their best innovation is Freevalve. And as the name would suggest, Freevalve is a system
where the valves are free. In a traditional engine,
the valves are pushed open in a sequence indirectly by
the lobes of the camshaft. As the camshaft spins,
the lobes push on a rocker or bucket lifter or something similar that then pushes on the valve stem, forcing the valve down into the cylinder and letting air in or exhaust out. This opening and closing
has to be perfectly timed so that the valves are open
when you want to move air, but close when you want combustion. Now, there are two sets of valves. You've got intake valves
for clean air coming in and you got exhaust valves for the combustion exhaust going out. The camshafts are timed using
a timing chain or a belt. The timing chain is
driven by the crankshaft, which is driven by the
movement of the pistons as they get pushed up and
down during combustion. So when a piston moves,
it moves the crankshaft, which moves the timing chain,
which moves the camshaft, which moves the rockers,
which move the valve. Now this has gotten us
by for quite some time, but there are a few problems
with these old camshafts. Since the timing is tied to
the movement of the crankshaft, as the crank spins faster, the valves are actually
open for less time. The lobes open the valves for a percentage of the camshaft's rotation. So as your RPMs get higher, that window of time gets shorter. You're getting the least amount of air when you need it the most. So to solve for that in the past, there have been more aggressive cams. Cams with bigger lobes that
push the valve open more and keep them open for longer. But now you're getting too much air when the car is at low revs and you need a lot of fuel to keep your combustion
ratios from bleeding out. So how do you make a cam that
can make power at top end while still being fuel
efficient at the low end? Well, one bandaid on the problem has been variable valve timing. There are a few ways to do this and every manufacturer
does it differently. But one of the most
straightforward versions is Honda's VTEC. We've done plenty of videos
explaining VTEC before, but the quick and simple explanation is that VTEC cams have two sets of lobes. At low RPMs, only the rockers touching the normal lobes are active. But once that RPM crosses
a certain threshold, a pin locks in the rocker for
the more aggressive lobes, and the sudden change is
when VTEC kicks in yo. (growling)
(car engine growling) But VTEC is only two cam profiles. What if you had an infinite
number of cam profiles? Well, this is part of what
makes Freevalve so special. Instead of a cam shaft, each valve gets an individually, electronically controlled actuator. Now. instead of valve lift and duration being determined mechanically, it is determined electronically. So Freevalve is a map
of every optimal state for every valve in any situation. And that might sound complicated, but it's really very similar to a fuel map or fuel injectors. It's a valve map. So Freevalve lets the
valves do their thing independent of the RPMs of the crankshaft, and there are a lot of
benefits to a system like this. Main one, as we mentioned
is multiple cam profiles, but it goes even further than that. The precision of actuated
valves is so high because the valves have been digitized. When we talk about digital versus analog, the best example I know
is to look at radio wave. An analog radio wave gradually
increases and decreases and is constantly changing,
while a digital wave is binary. It's either on or off. Now, imagine if these
waves were on a graph. The graph shows valve position over time. With the analog signal, the valve takes time to
gradually open to its peak and then starts to close right away again. With the digital wave however, the valve can instantly
open to its full lift, stay at the specific height,
then close again instantly. The digital wave is much
more controlled and precise. So the camshaft was our analog signal. And if you can imagine a
camshaft spinning down our graph, you can see how the lobe would match up with our analog wave. But the actuators are
sending a digital signal. And while the valves themselves still need a little bit of time to open and close, the signal is much closer to a binary one and can therefore let in
more air more precisely in the same amount of time. Over a traditional camshaft engine, if you keep all other parts the same and just swap to a free valve set up, your engine can make 30% more power and 30% more torque. But power isn't the only thing you gain with actuated valves. You also gain throttle response. I guess I shouldn't say throttle response, because it's not the throttle
that's doing anything. Let me explain. Normally, when you step
on the throttle pedal, a butterfly valve opens in your intake. That's your throttle. That lets air into the intake manifold, which leads to the valves. The valves are opening
and closing to let air in. But as we already established, their movement is based on the RPMs, not on the throttle pedal itself. But in a Freevalve engine, the valves are electronically controlled. So they can be controlled
by the throttle pedal. There's no need for a throttle
body or intake manifold. And since you don't need
cams or a timing chain, the head is also a lot smaller. So with all that junk out of the way, our Freevalve engine can be smaller and the throttle response
goes through the roof. Imagine the benefit you would get from individual throttle bodies just amped up a couple levels. Like me, Jeremiah, when I'm on sugar. The air is right there when
you ask for it with your foot and it goes directly into your cylinders. Now, this sounds super
aggressive like Canaan and powerful like me, but if you're not impressed
by speed and power, then the Freevalve engine has
one more trick up its sleeve, especially for turbocharged engines. For most cars, the worst
pollution comes at cold start. That's when your catalytic
converter hasn't warmed up yet. The materials inside the cat that react with harmful emissions in your exhaust, rhodium, palladium platinum, they work best at high temperatures. The higher the temperature, the faster the molecules move and the quicker these
molecules ionize and bond. On cold start, the engine
runs a little higher on idle to get some heat to the
catalytic converters, and it'll take a few minutes
for them to really get working. For turbo-charged cars, you
can't send too much heat down your exhaust because
you might damage a turbo. Rapid heating or cooling
of any part of your engine is never a good thing, as it can cause metal
fatigue and brittleness. The catalytic converter is pretty much the only exception to this. So how do you heat the cat
without risking the turbo? Well, Freevalve has a
cool way around this. On Koenigseggs, only
half the exhaust outlets feed the turbo. The rest flow to the exhaust directly. Since the valves can be
individually controlled, the ones leading to the turbo
can stay closed on cold start, and the ones leading to
the catalytic converter can start opening earlier. So early that the
combustion in the cylinder isn't totally done, and the
flame travels into the exhaust heating the cat. Because of this, Freevalve engines have an increase fuel efficiency of 15% and lower emissions by 30%. They're literally doing their
part for their environment by shooting flames out the exhaust. It's pretty sick. I'm doing my part for the environment by trying to engineer
a car to run off farts. I'm not joking. We're really working
on that here at "B2B." If you wanna see it in action, put a comment down below. And controlled exhaust valves also means that your turbocharger
doesn't need a wastegate. The air going to the turbo
can be perfectly metered by controlling the lift of
the valves feeding the turbo. Also, it's one less
thing in the engine bay. So a Freevalve engine is even smaller. No cams, no lifters, no timing chain, no intake manifold, no
throttle, no wastegate. Just ones and zeros and power. I know what you're
thinking, I'm a psychic. All this programming,
all these electronics, all this tech, it's gotta
be pretty expensive. Well, not really. Koenigsegg developed this
technology for their hyper cars, started the Freevalve
company and did all that R&D, but that was five years ago. And again, this is not actually
that crazy of a concept. I actually three years ago was like, hey, why don't they have
electronically controlled valves? And I googled it and I was like, "Oh, someone already (beep) did it." It's exactly what we
came up with 50 years ago for fuel injection, just applied to valves instead of injectors. Freevalve has been looking for customers to apply this technology
to an economy car engine, and they even did a little work with a Chinese manufacturer, Qoros. Qoros. Qoros! Qoros. I hope I got that right. But regardless of what Koenigsegg does with their proprietary tech, the concept is still
fairly straightforward. Heck, if you were determined enough, you can maybe even put this
together in your own garage. And I'm not making that stuff up. I mean, someone has literally
done this in their garage. This is Wesley Kagan. He's been messing around with
actuated valves in his garage for the last year. - That's closer than I
thought I was gonna be. - Wesley's build is proof that actuated, independently controlled
valves is something that any OEM could put in a car. - One of the things I really tried to do is not use any exotic materials
or try to use any materials that would have caused any issues. So the 3D printed parts are actually a high-temp PLA that I used. The solenoids and the
cylinders that I used for the control software
are basically off the shelf. But yeah, I mean, I built
it in a two-car garage in the suburbs. - Wesley has even made the CAD files from his Miata project available for free. So if you're an enthusiast
or you're an engineer or an executive at Mazda,
you should check them out, but maybe it's too late. Maybe the electric takeover is gonna put any of this
Freevalve stuff to bed early. And I know Jobe has moved on to the E36 with "Money Pit," but
the Miata is not dead. So maybe we do this on our own Miata. Put a comment down below
if you'd like to see that. Thank you guys so much for
watching this episode of "B2B." Please hit that like and subscribe button. That really helps us out. Follow us here on Donut
on Instagram @donutmedia. Follow me @Jeremiah Burton. And until next week, bye for now.
