No new or exotic technology is involved!
Anyone who has ever tried to improve the performance of an automotive engine knows to try to improve several things. Specifically for this discussion, airflow in and out of the cylinders is very important, as is the temperature of the intake air along the way.
The more air-fuel mixture that can be put into the cylinder and ignited, the more force there will be on the top of the piston and the more power the engine will produce. In addition, better mixing of the fuel and air is also important. For decades, people have used super-chargers and turbo-chargers to force a few percent more fuel-air mixture into the cylinders, and there is a resulting great increase of engine output. Regarding the mixing aspects, Ford has spent massive R&D funds pursuing a cylinder design called Stratified Charge, and Honda created their CVCC cylinder design. One major complication in most engines is that the gasoline and air are mixed a tiny fraction of a second before having to burn. For engines that have individual fuel injectors in each cylinder, at high engine speeds this can only involve 0.001 second or so! For carburetted engines or those that have TBI (throttle body injection), there is more mixing time but there are other complications that occur.
Another idea that is also very successfully used is to use as cool air as possible. Cooler air is more dense (Ideal Gas Law) and so a particular volume of cool air has more actual air and fuel in it that the same volume of hot air. Cool intake air induction and engine inter-coolers are popular standard approaches. These are also basic concepts involved in this improvement.
This improvement is very different, however, essentially using the other four cylinders, 3, 4, 5, and 8, as collective super-chargers. The spark plugs for those cylinders would not even be attached to the distributor and they would never fire. That means that this engine would ALWAYS actually operate as a four-cylinder engine, suggesting that the gasoline consumption could be around half, when desired.
However, where any standard engine brings in the amount of fuel-air mixture roughly equal to the displacement of a cylinder, this engine modification permits a wonderful improvement. In a standard small block Chevy 350 cid engine, for example, each cylinder has a displacement of around 45 cubic inches. Except for exhaust gases that had not left, that means that around 45 cubic inches of fuel-air mixture are available to burn inside that cylinder. Because some exhaust gas always remains, the actual amount is a little less, around 40 cubic inches.
Now, say that there was a supply of "compressed air" available at 30 PSIG (or 45 PSIA). As soon as an intake valve opened, instead of the downward moving piston having to SUCK the fresh air in, the compressed air would be FORCED quickly into the combustion chamber. For now, note that after the exhaust valve has closed, the cylinder gets filled with compressed air, actually THREE TIMES as much actual air than normal (Ideal Gas Law). When appropriate gasoline is injected into the cylinder, we then have three times the amount of fuel-air mixture inside the cylinder to burn, including around 135 "standard" cubic inches of air. When this fuel-air mixture burns well, it HAS TO create about three times the amount of power as normal. So, even though only half the cylinders are used for power, each one creates three times as much torque and horsepower, and so the engine would now create about one and a half times as much torque and horsepower as the original V-8 engine did!
It is actually better than that! Where the exhaust in a normal engine does not entirely leave (often around 10% of it remaining in the cylinder after the exhaust process has ended), this modification greatly improves that. As soon as the exhaust valve opens, the remaining combustion pressure in the cylinder starts driving the exhaust out, as well as the upward movement of the piston squeezing it out. Actually, the opening of the intake valve must be delayed until AFTER nearly all the exhaust has occurred, so any remaining pressure in the hot exhaust does not force its way backwards into the (low pressure, vacuum) intake manifold. In actual current engines, it actually does to some extent, which restricts the inward flow of new fuel-air mixture. However, consider the added advantage with highly pressurized intake air, where the opening of the intake valve allows that compressed air to push the rest of the exhaust gases out! It can be arranged that NO exhaust gas remains, and so the entire displacement volume of the cylinder is available for new gas-air mixture. Also, the high-pressure intake air is not slowed significantly by a little remaining exhaust gas, which could allow the intake valve to be opened a number of degrees earlier, even when there was still 30 PSIG of exhaust pressure inside the cylinder! This provides several percent of extra increase in power, and also a lot of new flexibility regarding valve timing. It may not actually be necessary to overlap valve timing at all, if that is desired!
Next, anyone familiar with high speed engine operation knows that the major limitation regarding RPMs has to do with engine breathing. At some point, the suction of the downward moving pistons just cannot overcome the frictional drag of the intake air passing through the intake manifold passageways. Essentially all automotive engines "starve for air" before any other limitations regarding high speed operation. So now consider the advantage of providing a large supply of compressed air as the intake. As soon as the intake valve opens, that pressurized intake air RUSHES into the cylinder, far more efficiently and far faster than in any conventional engine. There is a scientific reason for this. When the pistons need to create suction (which always shows up as intake vacuum), at high air speeds there are effects called cavitation and other special turbulences. When a lot of air needs to be moved through narrow passageways, it is nearly always a huge advantage to PUSH the air instead of SUCKING it. This is why all home furnaces have BLOWERS rather than SUCKERS!
In any case, with a highly pressurized source of intake air, a high engine speed does not run out of air. In theory, an engine should be able to run at least three times as fast. Instead of a 6,000 rpm red line for an engine, maybe it could be 18,000 rpm. Since delivered torque is relatively constant (for that situation) with engine speed, that suggests that the torque output would not drop off as in normal engines. Also, since horsepower is the product of that torque and engine rpm, the net horsepower produced at 18,000 rpm should be around triple that at 6,000 rpm. Assuming the engine does not explode from the very high speeds!
For existing engines, this suggests that a retro-fit kit could massively increase engine performance, while essentially using the same engine. For future vehicles, much smaller engines might therefore be able to create the power and acceleration and performance desired, while retaining the tiny engine displacement that can be used for extremely high fuel economy.
The air provided to the tank would come from the remaining four cylinders of the engine, each of which would be used as two-cycle air compressors. Those four cylinders (3,4,5,8) would use the normal intake manifold air path, of drawing air through the air filter from the front of the vehicle. These cylinders would be pretty standard, but the pistons' connecting rods would be around 1" shorter. The result would be that when they reach the top of their motion, the resulting compression ratio would not be 8:1 or 9:1, but only 3:1. The "exhaust manifolds" from these four cylinders would not actually be carrying exhaust, but compressed air at around 30 PSIG (or 45 PSIA). Those four cylinders would send their compressed air to a common "air tank chamber" out to the side of the engine, probably in front of the wheel.
In other words, these four cylinders would have only one function, that of compressing the intake air by a factor of 3:1, and continuously supplying that air tank. The air in the tank would then be at 45 PSIA or 30 PSIG, since atmospheric air is at 15 PSIA.
The camshaft should be made with doubled lobes on opposite sides for these cylinders, so they act as two-cycle air compressors rather than the standard four-cycle operation of the engine (which is maintained for the remaining four power cylinders). Other than that, the crankshaft, pistons, cylinders, heads, and valves should be able to be the standard original parts. No special machining is necessary for any of those components.
Another result of the Ideal Gas Law is that compressed air becomes hotter. Therefore, it actually works out that the air that arrives in that compressed air tank is at a higher pressure because of the effect of this heating. Therefore, a water-filled cooling tank surrounds that compressed air chamber to cool it back down. The end result is a substantial continuous supply of cool, compressed (extremely super-charged) air that will be now used by the power generating cylinders. The effect is to provide an incredibly effective super-charger for the engine. Instead of just providing a few "inches" or PSI boost as in a supercharger, this arrangement provides a 30 PSI boost!
The water-filled cooling chamber has a similar goal as the inter-coolers on many high performance engines. However, in those engines, the cooling only has a tiny fraction of a second to cool the air from a turbocharger, where this concept enables excellent (inter-)cooling due to the much longer time air is in the tank.
The four power cylinders are also rather normal cylinders. Again, the primary difference is that the pistons are again very low, due to shortened connecting rods, so they also only accomplish a 3:1 compression ratio. But, by accepting cooled air that is already compressed 3:1, the end result is a 9:1 compression ratio in the cylinders, with a VERY high density (three times as much) of air and fuel. This concept could NOT work with a carburetted engine and it needs cylinder fuel injection for best results and greatest safety. The resultant power would be VERY high, around one and a half times the total engine power (at any rpm) as compared to the original V-8 engine it started as.
With all the cylinders only creating a 3:1 compression, a number of mechanical advantages accrue, including a number of aspects that should minimize wear and future maintenance. Roughly half of the engine would not be creating massive heat, since it would only be used as an air compressor, and so heat stresses on components and lubricants might be less. The engine would be acting as a four-cylinder engine, with the capability of very high gas mileage that is associated with only supplying fuel for four cylinders rather than eight. But the power generated by this super-charged engine would be greater than that of the original eight-cylinder engine's performance. Low-end torque is reduced, but not be a terrible amount. But top end power is wildly increased due to higher rpm capability.
The exhaust manifolds for the power cylinders would remain like before, but the exhaust manifolds for the super-charger cylinders would have to go to the air tank chamber. Similarly, the intake manifold for the super-charger cylinders could remain as before, but the intake ports of the power cylinders would be connected directly to the air tank chamber.
As an alternative, consider NOT using the injectors in the power cylinders but rather using the injectors in the four super-charger cylinders (or possibly even within the compressed air tank!). The resultant mixture would have PLENTY of time to adequately mix (eliminating fuel droplets) and would also develop great uniformity throughout the air tank chamber. When this fuel-air mixture is then introduced into the cylinders, an EXTREMELY consistent and uniform fuel-air mixture would be present throughout each entire cylinder, providing absolute optimal power generation and minimum pollution generation.
It is unclear if there could be any circumstances where flame or spark from a power cylinder could get backwards past the intake valve, so research would be necessary in this area to avoid any explosion hazard of the air tank chamber igniting. Safety check valves might be appropriate to avoid such problems.
Essentially an existing V-8 engine could use less gasoline to produce performance comparable to the original V-8 operation, while also having a less-injected mode for far better fuel economy for normal driving! Instead of just bolting on an existing GM 6-71 truck supercharger on an engine, this much more effective approach to supercharging gives even better performance.
( http://mb-soft.com/public/othersci.html )
C Johnson, Physicist, Physics Degree from Univ of Chicago