[bestclimb]

I realize an engineering challenge is neato but the vibrations caused by the thing running unevenly can't do good things for longevity.

on a slightly unrelated note I have had a little experience with cylinder deactivation that does not necessarily have any bearing on this conversation.

A buddy and I had a POS nissan 2 seater (pulsar perhaps) that we would rally through the woods. One of the cylinders deactivated it self when, through no fault of our own, (rev limiter, bouncy mucky "roads" free flow oil exchange and what is that red light on the dash with an oil can?) a piston departed the side of the block. Anyway we added some oil stuffed a rag in the hole after removing the remaining bits of the rod depositing most of them safely in the oil pan we decided we would drive it out.

By pumping the gas pedal and cranking till about 1500 rpm we were able to get the thing to run. if you revved it to about 2500rpm (quite a racket) it would move under it's own power at not quite as an alarming rate as before. It worked "fine" till the oily rag resting against the exhaust did the inevitable where upon we got out and threw mud on the flaming bits. We removed the smoldering rag, and drove the last little bit to another friend's house that had a number of junkers where it rest in peace.