A method of manufacturing an internal combustion engine is provided. The engine includes a cylinder forming member, a piston reciprocatably accommodated in a cylinder, an injector which supplies fuel into a combustion chamber, and a heat insulating layer covering at least a part of a combustion-chamber wall surface and having a lower heat conductivity than the combustion-chamber wall surface. The method includes applying a coating material that is a material of the heat insulating layer to the combustion-chamber wall surface, assembling the piston to the cylinder forming member while the coating material is uncured, and heating the coating material to be cured by combusting the fuel injected from the injector and reciprocating the piston. The heating the coating material includes injecting the fuel from the injector at least in an early stage of the heating so that the injected fuel adhering to the surface of the coating material is suppressed.

Methods and systems are provided for injecting gaseous fuel during an engine start. In one example, a method comprises generating gaseous fuel via a fuel gasification device and injecting the gaseous fuel via a fuel injector. The fuel injector is configured to inject adjacent to an ignition device.

Separation of carbon dioxide from the exhaust of an internal combustion engine, the production of hydrogen from water, and reformation of carbon dioxide and hydrogen into relatively high-octane fuel components.

A method of controlling an engine is provided, which includes the steps of, during motoring of the engine, injecting, by an injector, fuel for analysis into a cylinder at a specific timing after an intake valve of the cylinder of the engine is closed, outputting to a controller, by an in-cylinder pressure sensor, a signal corresponding to a pressure inside the cylinder at least at a timing when a specific crank angle period has passed from the fuel injection timing, and determining, by the controller, a property of the fuel injected by the injector, by comparing a pressure value measured by the in-cylinder pressure sensor with a reference pressure value inside the cylinder measured at a timing when the specific crank angle period has passed after a standard fuel is injected into the cylinder at the specific timing.

Systems and methods are provided for cooling an overheated engine using a combination of variable displacement engine (VDE) technology and direct injection technology. In one example, a method may include deactivating a subset of engine cylinders based on an engine temperature and directly injecting liquid fuel into the deactivated cylinders. In this way, an increased thermal conductivity of the liquid fuel compared to air decreases the engine temperature at a faster rate than when air-based engine cooling methods are used, thereby preventing overheating-related engine degradation.

An engine includes a cylinder internal pressure sensor, a torque sensor, and an engine control device. The cylinder internal pressure sensor detects a cylinder internal pressure. The torque sensor detects an engine load. The engine control device receives a detection result of the cylinder internal pressure sensor and a detection result of the torque sensor. If the load detected by the torque sensor is zero (no load) and the cylinder internal pressure obtained from the detection result of the cylinder internal pressure sensor is greater than or equal to a threshold, the engine control device determines that an abnormality occurs in detection by the torque sensor.

According to one or more embodiments presently described, a method of operating an internal combustion engine that includes injecting fuel into a combustion chamber to form an air-fuel mixture, where the combustion chamber includes a cylinder head, cylinder sidewalls, and a piston that reciprocates within the cylinder sidewalls. The method may also include detecting pre-ignition of the air-fuel mixture during a detected intake or compression stroke of the piston, determining that a super knock condition could occur, and mitigating formation of a super knock condition by deploying a super knock countermeasure within the detected compression stroke.

An internal combustion engine with a plurality of cylinders is a drive device in which the drive torque available can be reduced. The ignition timing which is set at the internal combustion engine is adjusted in the retarded direction starting from an initial ignition timing until the ignition timing corresponds to a threshold ignition timing. To reduce the drive torque further, at least one cylinder, among the plurality of cylinders, is deactivated by suspending fuel injection into the cylinder, and the remaining cylinder(s) continue to be operated with fuel injection using the ignition timing. The remaining cylinders of the internal combustion engine which continue to be operated are supplied with a quantity of fuel which is larger in comparison with an initial quantity of fuel present before the cylinder deactivation, to set a substoichiometric fuel/oxygen ratio.

A fuel injection control device and a fuel injection control method for an internal combustion engine according to the present invention correct a basic pulse width by a cylinder-specific correction value that is based on injection variations among fuel injection valves to specify a cylinder-specific pulse width, determine whether or not a split number is acceptable based on a minimum pulse width and a pulse width per one injection calculated from the cylinder-specific pulse width and the split number to modify the split number based on a result of the acceptance determination, modify an acceptance determination reference value which is used in the acceptance determination based on the correction value for each cylinder, and execute split injection based on the split number, the basic pulse width, and the correction value for each cylinder.

In a combustion cycle in which fuel for forming a homogenized air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber is injected from the first fuel injector, ignition-use fuel for forming an ignition-use air-fuel mixture in the vicinity of the electrode part is injected from the second fuel injector, and lean combustion is performed by an excess air rate of 2.0 or more, the ignition-use fuel is injected by at least an injection rate of 1.0 mm.sup.3/ms or more for a duration of 250 μs or more in an interval from a crank angle advanced by exactly 20 degrees from an ignition timing of the spark plug to the ignition timing, and the quantity of the ignition-use fuel is 2.0 mm.sup.3/st or less.