摘要:
A valve operating mechanism for operating a single valve (1) of a particular cylinder of an internal combustion engine includes a camshaft (2) rotatable in synchronism with rotation of the internal combustion engine and having at least one cam, (4,5), and a plurality of cam followers (7-9), one of which slidably engages the cam for selectively operating the valve according to a cam profile of the cam. The cam followers are selectively interconnected and disconnected to operate the valve differently in different speed ranges of the internal combustion engine. In different embodiments, the camshaft has an annular raised portion (3) and low- (4) and high-speed (5) cams, or low-, medium-, and high-speed cams, or an annular raised portion and a cam, and the cam followers are held in sliding contact with these raised portion and cams. The valve is selectively kept inoperative by the raised portion and operated in low- and high-speed ranges by the low- and high-speed cams, or selectively operated in low-, medium-, and high-speed ranges by the low-, medium-, and high-speed cams, or selectively kept inoperative by the raised portion and operated in a high-speed range by the cam.