The dual-port fuel injection system for fuel economy improvement in an automotive spark-ignition gasoline engine

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the performance of the dual-port injection (DPI) system in an automotive spark-ignition engine. The DPI system utilizes two port fuel injection (PFI) injectors per cylinder, i.e., one injector at each intake port. An original 4-cylinder PFI engine head was modified to accommodate total 8 PFI injectors. In the present study, three spray angles and two install configurations were investigated in the intake port visualization, steady-state part-load experiments, and cold-start experiment. The intake port spray visualization experiment showed that the wider fuel spray provided better fuel distribution, but also more wall wetting. The steady-state engine experiment at the several critical part-load conditions showed that the DPI system in combination with the open-valve-injection strategy achieved the most brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) reduction of 4.6%. The average BSFC reduction of the 9-point experiment was 2.8%. The cold-start experiment also showed a fuel economy gain by the DPI system. In the cold-start experiment the wider spray angle exhibited higher total hydrocarbon emission likely due to the greater wall wetting observed in the intake port spray images.