I have read and heard that v-8 deactivation doesn’t work very well. Some cylinders get to hot, vibrations, not being smooth, etc.
How about two separate in-line 4 cylinder engines sitting side by side instead of a V-8. Both would operate when power is needed but one whole engine would cut off while cruising.
The two engines would be joined at the transmission like some of these multi engine cars or tractors.
Thanks for your time
Ray
double the parts and complexity, double the cost, double the problems, and a whole new transmission design? And where would you put two engines?
No.
I got a better idea: how about just don’t implement cylinder deactivation in the first place.
Not a single Toyota engine uses that technology.
Two engines side by side won't fit in any chassis. Both engines would need either a separate cooling system or an odd shared design, which would cause quite a bit of inefficiency across the design. The running engine would be dissipating its heat to the other engine, as well as the radiator. That's really just the tip of the iceberg for the problems you'd get with a setup like this.
I had an interesting, kind of tongue-in-cheek idea a few months ago to alternate firing on different cylinders to fix the problems with deactivation. It was a 30 second reaction to one of scotty's videos a few weeks prior. https://youtu.be/ITICM_yox4E around 4:20, Scotty discusses it. Basically, V8s get crappy gas mileage, there's no real way around it. The power trade-off for fuel economy vs unnecessary complexity is always going to be there.
I enjoy driving my '79 V8 Catalina because of the power. Personally, I don't care about MPG in a V8 vehicle. I know it's gonna be bad, so If I want better mileage, I'll drive my V6 Ranger or my V6 Mustang.
