FUEL INJECTION SOON?

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30958, 14 January 1966, Page 7

FUEL INJECTION SOON?

(By JOHN LANGLEY in the "Daily Telegraph.” ■ Reprinted by arrangement.] INTENSIVE development is continuing in the motor industry as car designers and engineers prepare for the next big advance in the efficiency of the petrol engine.

Several manufacturers in Britain and abroad are testing prototype cars fitted with engines fed by new fuel-injec-tion systems. At least three of the big British components firms supplying the car manufacturers are in the race to market an efficient fuel injection system at a competitive price.

t Compared with a simple carburettor layout, fuel injection offers the promise of a substantial performance increase, Or improved economy, from the same size engine. But the high cost of producing the finely-engineered injector pump required for the

system has so far proved to be an insuperable economic barrier to its extension to popular cars. As a result, fuel injection has been confined to racing cars and a handful of comparatively expensive production saloons, notably those produced by Mercedes-Benz The development now continuing could dramatically change this situation. If the new systems now being tested live up to their promise, most medium-priced and dearer cars will have fuel injection engines within five years. As the roads become more congested, opportunities for safe overtaking are reduced. Good acceleration becomes of paramount importance in reducing what Ford research and safety engineers have called the T.E.D. (time exposed to danger) factor.

But, apart from performance, there is an argument in favour of fuel injection which is likely to carryincreasing weight with the car manufacturers. Tests have shown that an efficient fuel injection system can materially reduce the amount of atmospheric pollution from exhaust, gases. In place of the somewhat rough-and-ready system of feeding fuel to an engine through a carburettor, the fuel injection pump meters the exact amount of petrol required into each cylinder and more complete combustion is achieved. Mr H. E. Jackson, who invented a fuel-injection system being developed by Tecalemit in Plymouth, goes so far as to claim that the system “pretty well eliminates” carbon monoxide and unburnt hydro-carbons in the exhaust gases.

The Tecalemit system will be considerably cheaper than the previous types of fuel injection, which have cost around £2OO. Another newcomer to the field is a company formed recently by the Simms Corporation, of Britain, and BorgWarner, of the United States. This will go into production in Britain in about 18 months with a development of the American Marvel-Schebler fuel injection system. Lucas is investigating the adaptation for everyday use of the expensive injection system it supplies to British grand prix cars.