A V-engine is known as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-199434. This V-engine has an arrangement, in which chain tensioners make a sliding contact with corresponding ones of a pair of cam chains for transmitting power to corresponding ones of the camshafts of a pair of banks set at an angle to form the letter V that are urged toward a side of the cam chains by tensioner lifters included in cylinder heads of the two banks.
The V-engine disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-199434 includes the following arrangements. More specifically, one tensioner lifter is disposed on the cylinder head of one bank at a portion corresponding to an outside of both banks. The other tensioner lifter is disposed on the cylinder head of the other bank at a portion corresponding to an inside of both banks. Each of the two tensioner lifter is disposed on the corresponding one of the cylinder heads at a position equally spaced away from an upper end connection surface of the corresponding one of the cylinder heads. In these arrangements, the tensioner lifter disposed on the cylinder head of the other bank at the portion corresponding to the inside of the two banks is located on a relatively higher level between the two banks. This results in a dead space occupying a relatively large ratio of a space between the two banks.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds