Patent ID: 8202064

Claim:
A method of operating a liquid pump, comprising the steps of: reciprocating a plunger in a plunger cavity responsive to rotation of a cam; maintaining the plunger at a position that follows the cam with a return spring so that the plunger reciprocates through a fixed travel distance, which corresponds to a fixed displacement volume, with each reciprocation; controlling output from the liquid pump by generating cavitation bubbles in a liquid flowing toward the plunger cavity with a throttle inlet valve to limit a volume of liquid supplied to the plunger cavity to be less than a displacement volume of the plunger cavity; and forming a flow pattern through an inlet port passage by locating a cavitation flow adjuster in the inlet port passage; wherein the forming steps includes lowering static pressure in the inlet port passage to encourage the cavitation bubbles to collapse away from walls that define the inlet port passage.