Injector Shutoff

[Loren]

A 4-cylinder engine is balanced to run as a 4-cylinder engine. If you disable one cylinder, the remaining three will not run smoothly. You could DO it, but there's no way you could sell such a car because on 3 cylinders, it wouldn't idle smoothly and it wouldn't run smoothly.

In reality, it would probably take MORE fuel to run a 4-cylinder car on 3 cylinders due to that inherent imbalance which would need to be overcome.

Cutting cylinders works in something like a V8 engine (I think I read that the new Chryslers like the Charger are doing it for economy, so it's not just the historic Cadillac failure) where two or four cylinders can be dropped and still retain a somewhat balanced cycle.

[H3LlIoN]

Originally Posted by Loren

(I think I read that the new Chryslers like the Charger are doing it for economy, so it's not just the historic Cadillac failure)

Yeah, Chrysler, Honda and GM all have some type of this tech in effect and available on new cars.

OP...I was thinking about this last night...for some reason, I seem to recall that it only works on a V style engine. Smallest I can find is V-6.