The present work aims to develop a control-oriented lumped model to investigate the fluid dynamic behaviour of multi-valve spark-ignition engines (ICEs). Specifically, the attention has been focused on the intake phase and in-cylinder air charge estimation. To this purpose, a spark-ignition engine has been characterised at a flow rig in terms of flow coefficients. The experimental data have been used to define the fluid dynamic behaviour of the different intake system components and to calibrate and validate the proposed model that has been developed in Matlab/Simulink environment. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the capability of the zero-dimensional code and to estimate the instantaneous in-cylinder mass flow in different operating conditions, the numerical data have been compared to the results of a one-dimensional commercial software. The comparison between numerical and experimental data shows a good agreement. The investigation highlights that the proposed control-oriented lumped model represents a useful and simple tool to evaluate the engine breathability and to define the proper valve timing. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.