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Camshafts - Scatter cams, pros and cons |
31 August 2001 |
To scatter or not to scatter, that is the question.
This whole 'scattering' deal has befuddled many. The only
real prose produced on the subject, and 'advice' handed out by many so-called
'specialists' tends to be somewhat tainted with large chunks of mysticism -
inferring there's some kind of black art involved. The simple fact is the
principle is very basic and easy; it's getting a cam with the right profile and
figures applied to it that will actually work as a scatter profile that's the
hard part. I will illuminate…
We are all pretty much aware that the A-series is a
real oddity, largely because of the Siamese (shared) port work - cylinders 1
& 2 share an inlet port, cylinders 3 & 4 share an inlet port, and
cylinders 2 & 3 share an exhaust port. Very weird compared to the more
familiar head designs found on almost every other engine type that has one
inlet and one exhaust port per cylinder. You only have to observe how long the
inlet valves are open together on one shared port to realise the potential
problem this could cause. Next time you set the valve clearances, or now out of
simple curiosity, turn the engine over by hand - or manually some other way -
with the spark plugs removed for ease and rocker cover off. Watch one pair of
inlet valves throughout their open and closing cycles. It's quite astonishing
how long they are both open together isn't it? A situation worsened by
sportier, longer duration camshaft. Consequently this shared port deal brings
about it's own set of problems - cross-port interference is one, different flow
potential another.
Cross-port interference is where one cylinder is
effectively wreaking some kind of havoc on the other cylinder sharing the same
port. On the inlets this amounts to some incoming charge robbing by one inlet
valve from the other, on the exhausts a possibility of disturbing extraction
and shockwave interference that may inhibit flow as well as ram-charging.
Although cylinders 2 & 3 exhaust through the same port, they do so 360
degrees apart, so there is no cross-port interference of any sort going on
there. Incidentally - that cylinder robbing is commonly expressed by the
aforementioned 'specialists' as the sole reason for scatter pattern cam use.
Just goes to show how 'specialist' they are as this simply isn't so.
Different flow potential in this case is concerned
with the exhaust ports. The end exhaust ports not only have the luxury of one
cylinder/valve per port, but also have a much better shape to them. The middle
two cylinders not only share a port, but have a far less effective port shape
too. An expertly modified cylinder head modified to give the best flow figures
for any application (road or race) invariably has greater flow out of the end
two ports than the centre port. It is obviously possible to limit the
modifications to the end ports to keep them similar to the centre port - but
that's wasting power potential.
When considering the problems in hand, it is easier to
cut the engine down into two two-cylinder engines rather than looking at it as
one four cylinder engine, treating cylinders 3 & 4 as mirror images of 1
& 2. The basic principle then is to arrange the cam lobes to maximise
performance by minimising cross-port interference and maximising port flow
performance caused by the port sharing and mismatched ports problem. Told you
the principle was easy. I suppose the simplest explanation of what a scatter
pattern cam does is to say it reduces the shared time of the siamesed inlet
ports, thereby reducing the negative interaction of the inner cylinders by the
outer ones.
However, before any cam timing figures and phasing can
be considered you need to appreciate a few things. The inner cylinder of each
pair draws fresh charge first, followed 180 degrees later by the outer one - as
observed by the little experiment outlined above, the valves are open together
for a great deal of time. Hence the outer cylinder is robbing fresh charge from
the inner one, further exaggerated by the scavenging action at the end of the
induction stroke of the outer cylinder over-powering that of the inner one. And
the inner exhaust port is fundamentally less effective in terms of airflow
capability compared to the outer one; one side effect being different
scavenging periods.
The theoretical solution to the problem then is to
scatter (re-phase) the cam timing to optimise all four cylinders as follows -
one
set of timing figures for inlets 1 & 4
a
different set of timing figures for inlets 2 & 3
a
specific set of timing figures for exhausts 1 & 4
a
specific set of timing figures for exhausts 2 & 3
This is generally achieved by reducing the lobe
centreline angle of cylinders 2 & 3, widening it on cylinders 1 & 4,
exhaust timing similar or shorter of cylinders 1 & 4 than their equivalent
inlets and exhaust timing longer than the inlets on 2 & 3. That's a proper
scatter cam. Simpler forms are used where the exhaust timing is less exotic -
largely because of cost and development work.
To grind a simple scatter cam is approximately twice the
cost of a more standard single (inlet and exhaust timing the same) or dual
(inlet has different timing to exhaust) phase camshaft because the cam has
effectively to be ground twice. To grind a 'real' scatter cam would cost nearly
four times as much. Then there's the development work necessary to evaluate
exactly what is needed - you can't simply apply the scatter phasing to current
off-the-shelf profiles. Some will work, some will be horrible. The development
costs would be immense bearing in mind the time it takes to actually grind a
real scatter cam, the all the dyno work to evaluate the profile, and how
sensitive it is to engine build spec and components used. So the big question
is - is it worth it?
In my humble opinion, the simple scatter cams that are
already available that actually work are. But only on cams that have been
specifically developed to be a scatter profile where the duration is less than
300 degrees or have been found to work by accident. This narrows the field down
a lot - the Kent MD310SP works great. I have little experience with the scatter
profiles offered by APT; however they have put far more research and testing
into this cam phenomena than everybody else put together. I absolutely do not
personally recommend using scatter profiles based on off-the-shelf profiles
having durations less than 300 degrees. That means stuff like
From my limited experience of scatter pattern cam use,
it would seem that the whole concept is seriously fine-tuning the A-series to
the point of being an art where they will work handsomely if properly and
specifically developed - but only when used with an exact component list and
engine build that duplicates the test engine exactly. Either that or by
complete accident a set of components and engine build accrues the environment
where a previously abhorred scattered profile works.