Honda VTEC

VTEC is one of Honda's greatest invention. Though an undisputed expert in turbocharging as evidenced by years of Formula-1 domination while Honda was active in the sport, Honda's engineers feels that turbocharging has disadvantages, primarily bad fuel economy, that made it not totally suitable for street use. At the same time, the advantages of working with smaller engines meant that smaller capacity engines with as high power output as possible (ie very high specific-output engines) are desirable for street engines.
Thus Honda invented VTEC which allows it to extract turbo level specific output from its engines without having to suffer from the disadvantages of turbocharging (though VTEC introduces disadvantages of its own).
The Temple of VTEC is specifically created by Jeff Palmer as a dedication to this great technology and the Temple of VTEC Asia is dedicated to the home of VTEC -and of Honda, Japan and the region of Asia.
In this permanent feature, we will examine the basic mechanism that make up the VTEC technology as well as the various implementations of VTEC.