Valves
- What are they?
- What do they do?
What are they?
The valves of an engine are metal almost horn shaped components with a flat solid bottom. These sit within the cylinder head in machined gaps.
What do they do?
The valves are responsible for opening and closing. On every engine there are always two sets of valves. On for allowing air/fuel mixture into the combustion chamber, known as the inlet valve/s, and the other for allowing the waste or remainder of the mixture back out of the chamber and through the exhaust system, known cleverly as the outlet valve/s.
As the camshaft spins, the machined cams push the inlet valves open at the perfect time and then quickly closes when the perfect amount of mixture is the combustion chamber. As the camshaft continues the spin it then allows the outlet valve to open to let the mixture out again and closes up again before the piston comes back round for another stroke.