History Of VTEC - The Quest For The Ultimate Performance

Honda's i-VTEC continues to maintain an industry presence. On the drag racing front, Skunk2 has K-powered all-motor cars ripping the quarter mile in 9.85 seconds, while Papadakis is still taking his AEM RWD Pro Civic into record-setting territory. In the relatively new sport of drifting, Alex Pfeiffer and Papadakis are both campaigning Honda S2000s. VTEC continues to contribute to motorsports around the world, from drag racing and drifting to time attack and autocross.

On July 5, 2005 Honda announced the latest i-VTEC motor will debut in the new 2006 Civic. This 1.8-liter i-VTEC powerplant is the face of things to come. With economy and performance as its priorities, it appears to be the jack-of-all-trades. This motor promises to have the acceleration of a 2.0-liter but get the mileage of a 1.5-liter. Honda states that the i-VTEC system will switch to a highly efficient valve timing mode for acceleration and torque, then switch to an economy mode when cruising, delaying intake valve closure to promote enhanced fuel economy. When cruising, the throttle plate will be only partially opened. Therefore, only a limited amount of air is allowed to pass and creates "intake resistance" which translates into pumping loss. The delayed intake valve closure helps to reduce pumping loss by up to 16 percent, according to Honda. In addition, friction-reducing measures were taken throughout the engine to further increase overall efficiency.

So what's in the future for this pedigree of power and efficiency? Honda is working toward incorporating i-VTEC technology into most of its lineup. In addition, an advanced VTEC engine is slated to be released, sporting continuously variable-valve lift control and phasing of valve switchover timing. In conjunction with a variable-length intake manifold, the advanced VTEC engine anticipates having a 13-percent increase in combustion efficiency over current i-VTEC powerplants, We can hardly wait.