The History of
Direct Injection
Past:
- Direct injection fuel systems are not
a new technology. Direct injection was
invented by a Swedish engineer, Jonas
Hesselman, in 1925 (Counterman magazine).
During WW ll, Germany and even Russia employed
gasoline direct injection systems onto several
of their air crafts. Since direct injection
doesn't rely on gravity (like a carburetor),
they were great additions for planes seeking
to turn sharply and even fly upside down. The
first mass production car with direct
injection was a Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing.
The 300SL was the fastest production car of
it's time. However, port-injection proved to
work well and was cheaper, and due to a lack
of electronics, direction injection did not
have much room to grow.
Mercedes 300SL
Gullwing
(rpmrush.com)
Present:
- Fast-forward 40 years. Electronic
technology has had some incredible break
throughs. In 1996, Mitsubishi
reintroduced gasoline direct injection into
the Japanese auto market. These cars preformed
well, but had excessive oxides of nitrogen in
the emissions that prevented their
introduction into other markets. But when the
Audi direct injection 3.2 liter V6 was
released, direct injection was what everyone
in the auto industry was talking about. It was
this engine that proved direction injection
could not only be competitive with port fuel
injection, but could outperform it with both
economy and power while maintaining comparable
emissions. Today, almost every single major
auto manufacturing company in the world are
now producing direct injection
engines.
Audi's direct injection
engine
(caranddriver.com)
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