valve train forces
Are you inquiring about a specific LS engine?
whats revealing is the peak at abot 30° after intake valve open. im also trying to understand where the second peak at close comes from. the valve bangs onto the seat, but why that would affect valve tip force is beyond me. the rocker would accelerate away from the valve, no? (i can see the second peak between cam and lifter due to inertia of the components.)
edit: there will always be a substantial difference between calculated and measured values.
Last edited by Dian; Jul 15, 2022 at 03:01 PM.
im looking for real (measured) data.
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My point is, what is to be gained from such knowledge as far as durability or component life goes?
As has been said, the answers to your questions would be very similar regardless of the cam, lifter, pushrod, and rocker arm used. It mostly comes down to spring rate and pressure.
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what can be gained? everything you need to know to develop a functioning valve train: forces and speeds on contact points (e.g. for tribological evalution), stiffness and material requirements of components, insight into their longitudinal and transverse vibration as well as damping properties. what do you think engineers do? just dream something up?
example: fatigue strenght of a component depends on amplitude of load and number of cycles (to simplify). you need to know by how much effective load and number of cycles exeed a simple model due to vibration to chose a material.
edit: have you ever looked at a graph of real valve acceleration? might be quite revealing.
Last edited by Dian; Jul 19, 2022 at 12:47 AM.
engine: stock 1999 ls1 (c5). according to my info: "472/479, 199/207, 117" cam. im measuring 276/281 on the lobes and 473 exh. valve lift (intake got lost somehow). the only other info i would have is pushrod, spring, keeper and retainer weight. spring is supposedly 75/230 lbs. (i dont remember where that came from.)
Last edited by Dian; Jul 22, 2022 at 12:36 AM.
im looking for real (measured) data.
Second to combustion pressure I worry about bouncing off the seat secondly.
It's a cool topic for sure. If I'm wrong it will have been worth it to learn something.
ill add: friction, change of angles pushrod-rocker/rocker-valve.
lets see if i can upload this (i dont remember what kind of engine it was):
no, it doesnt upload for some reason. ill try later.
its a graph basically showing seat pressure being about equal to keeper pressure at ivo and quickly falling to zero before the acceleration jerk of the valve. it also shows the banging at close being about half of max seat pressure, but is not reflected in valve tip pressure (as expected). this is why i dont get the second peak in the graph in first post.
Last edited by Dian; Jul 24, 2022 at 04:22 AM.
I would ADD the importance of exhaust valve seat pressure, often forgotten.
His math used states the area of the exhaust valve, "R" squared x 3.1416.
Thus a common EMAP in a "turbo" engine (39psi) will reduce the exhaust valve seat pressure by 60 .lbs.
This could allow seat bounce.
But still, typically the highest load by far on the valvetrain is the Exhaust valve opening event.
btw, i guess the "dynamics" of the valvetrain are often underestimated. a real acceleration graph can show "vibrations" of 50% of the average value throughout the whole event. jerk and even quirk curves with large spikes. its surprising the system somehow survives.
this is the graph i was talking about above:
it doesnt upload. does that happen often? (i havent been here for a while.)
so the graph i mentioned will not up load, same png-format, same file, very weird.
anyway, to put this into perpective, the original question implicitly implied a v8 pushrod engine at wot around peak power. im pretty sure now the largest valve tip forces are around 30° after valve open and 30° before valve close at 10-15% lift. maybe think about this when following the omnipresent instructions to center the rocker contact point on the valve.
of course if looking at the engine idling the highest pressure will be dictated by spring force (thats why many taxi engines have problems with the trunions). if you look at a slow running fi diesel engine at wot, cylinder pressure will have the largest impact on the exhaust side. valve bounce can input the largest forces into the system, but not on the valve tip, i guess.
Last edited by Dian; Aug 6, 2022 at 02:22 AM.
What is your reason ?
My ADVICE is the find ways the reduce valve train inertia.
Remember the valve train needs to be accelerated.
A lite valve well reduce required forces, spring pressure requirement and allow the engine to "spin up" faster.







