When I taught H.S. Auto Shop, occasionally I would get a student that wanted to build a 'High Performance' engine. I would make them plot the valve lift (every degree) for both the intake and exhaust valves on graph paper. They could then slide the graphs over each other and open and close the lobe centers. Eventually, I made and Excel spread sheet that would graph the numbers.
My hope was that, over time, we could have some data to compare with real running engines. They would be able see the effects of overlap, intensity, lift and duration.
But, alas, video games and texting are a lot more exciting than plotting valve lift curves and building engines.
I miss the smoke and noise.
One of the reasons I retired.
