Abstract: An improved fuel supply system for a turbocharged diesel engine, of the general type comprising a fuel pump which conveys fuel at an intermediate pressure to a high-pressure distributor which has a fuel-injection timing piston that adjusts the injection timing as a function of the intermediate fuel pressure. The improved system includes a control unit which reduces the pressure applied to the timing piston when the engine is subjected to a demand for increased fueling at low turbocharger boost pressures. This causes the injection timing to be retarded, which in turn increases the exhaust temperature and pressure and, thus, increases the turbocharger boost pressure. After a controlled interval during which boost pressure has risen the desired amount, the control unit allows the pressure applied to the timing piston to rise back to its former value, whereupon the injection timing returns to normal.

Abstract: A spark ignited internal combustion engine includes a cylinder block defining a cylinder which accommodates a piston and is closed by a cylinder head. One of the opposed surfaces of the piston and cylinder head affords a recess constituting a combustion chamber. The outer edge of the recess is defined, when viewed in plan, by two arcs, the radius of curvature of each arc being less at one end than at the other, the decrease in the radius of curvature being in the same sense in the two arcs. In use, when the piston is performing its compression stroke at least two swirl patterns are produced in the inlet charge of air and fuel in separate portions of the combustion chamber in the same sense about respective axes parallel to the axis of the cylinder.

Abstract: A catalytic combustion engine, each cylinder of which has a pre-combustion chamber communicating through an inclined transfer cylinder to produce swirl around the chamber, and has a pair of spaced parallel or nearly-parallel catalytic screen elements, e.g. gauzes, mounted to both the mouth of the transfer passage and the fuel injector nozzle, so as to be clear of the circumferential swirl path of the gas circulating in the chamber. The minimum spacing between the two catalytic screens should exceed the width of the mouth of the transfer passage. The injector injects a fuel spray between the two catalytic screens which preferably just brushes each screen and impinges on a heater plug. The compression ratio may be much lower than that for a conventional Diesel engine, for example down to 12:1.