Four Stroke Engines[edit]

Itala rotary valve engine (1912).

Itala rotary valve cooling (1919).

Darracq rotary-valve engine (circa. 1919)

The rotary valve combustion engine possesses several significant advantages over the
conventional assemblies, including significantly higher compression ratios and rpm, meaning
more power, a much more compact and light-weight cylinder head, and reduced complexity,
meaning higher reliability and lower cost. As inlet and exhaust are usually combined special
attention should be given to valve cooling to avoid engine knocking.
Rotary valves have been used in several different engine designs. In Britain, the National Engine
Company Ltd advertised its rotary valve engine for use in early aircraft, at a time when poppet
valves were prone to failure by sticking or burning.[8]
In the end of 1930s, Frank Aspin developed a design with a rotary valve that rotated on the same
axis as the cylinder bore, but with limited success.[9]

US company Coates International Ltd has developed a spherical rotary valve for internal

combustion engines which replaces the poppet valve system. This particular design is four-
stroke, with the rotary valves operated by overhead shafts in lieu of overhead camshafts (i.e. in
line with a bank of cylinders). The first sale of such an engine was part of a natural gas engine-
generator.[10]
Rotary valves are potentially highly suitable for high-revving engines, such as those used
in racing sportscars and F1 racing cars, on which traditional poppet valves with springs can fail
due to valve float and spring resonance and where the desmodromic valve gear is too heavy,
large in size and too complex to time and design properly. Rotary valves could allow for a more
compact and lightweight cylinder head design. They rotate at half engine speed (or one quarter)
and lack the inertia forces of reciprocating valve mechanisms. This allows for higher engine
speeds, offering approximately perhaps 10% more power. The 1980s MGN W12 F1 engine used
rotary valves but never raced. Between 2002 and 2004 the Australian developer Bishop
Innovation and Mercedes-Ilmor tested rotary valves for a F1 V10 engine.[11]
Bishop Innovations' patent for the rotary valve engine was bought out by BRV Pty Ltd, owned by
Tony Wallis, one of the valves original designers. BRV has constructed several functional motors
using the rotary valve technology, such as a Honda CRF 450, which had greater torque at both
low(17% increase) and high (9% increase) engine speeds, and also produced more brake
horsepower up to around 30% more at functional engine speeds.[11] The engine was also
considerably smaller and lighter, as the cylinder head assembly was not as large.