A crackpot idea

[Sludgy]

During research into Atkinson engines, I thought of something I haven't seen anywhere else: A gasoline engine with no throttle. Here's the idea:

Atkinson cycle engines use late valve closure to trap less air and fuel in each cylinder, generally in conjunction with high compression heads (to be technically correct, high expansion heads). My idea is to carry this concept to an to extreme, and use variable valve timing to vary the amount of air and fuel trapped in each cylinder and thereby vary the power output.

At idle, the intake valve would close at ~5-15 degrees BTDC, but the throttle would be wide open. (For that matter, why even install a throttle?) Then, when more power is desired, advance the intake valve closure to take bigger gulps of air. Full power output would be with intake valve closure at about BDC. (For really high expansion ratios (<13:1) full throttle would have to be ~30 degrees ABDC (~150 degrees BTDC) to avoid ping.)

Drawing air in at essentially atmospheric pressure instead of the vacuum that the throttle creates would substantially reduce pumping loss. Since VVT has already been developed, little new tooling would be needed, only a change in cam actuator programming.

The only problem I see so far is that there would be no manifold vacuum to run power brakes, but that's not a big deal to fix, since diesels use vacuum pumps anyway.

Maybe I should patent this idea. Or send it to Toyota. Has anybody seen anything like this?