Residual gas fraction in an engine cylinder affects engine performance, efficiency and emission characteristics. With high residual gas fractions, a flame speed and maximum combustion temperature are decreased and these are deeply related with combustion stability especially at idle and NOx emission at relatively high engine load. In this work, the residual gas fraction was calculated by an engine simulation code, which was validated by the experimental data (cylinder pressure and emissions) obtained from 4-cyliner spark ignition engine. A comparison between experimental and computational calculation results was made. The residual gas is generated mostly at low engine speed by the larger pressure difference between the intake and exhaust port. As the valve overlap duration was increased, the amount of residual gas in the cylinder, the amount of HC emission in the exhaust gas and the variation of power output increased.