Apparatus and method for successively inactivating the cylinders of an electronically fuel-injected internal combustion engine in response to sensed engine load
First Claim
1. Apparatus for controlling the injection of fuel to the cylinders of an electronically fuel injected internal combustion engine mounted on a roadway vehicle having means for generating injection pulses to be applied to the injection unit of each cylinder, comprising:
- means for sensing the magnitude of load exerted on said engine;
means for varying the number of active cylinders such that the number of cylinders to be fuel-injected for ignition decreases one at a time when the sensed engine load is below a first predetermined value, increases one at a time when the sensed engine load is above a second predetermined value greater than the first predetermined value and maintains constant when the sensed engine load is between the first and second values; and
means for inhibiting the injection of fuel to one or more cylinders corresponding in number to said number of inactive cylinders.
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Abstract
In a multi-cylinder fuel injection type internal combustion engine, apparatus is provided for successively inactivating one or more cylinders of the engine by inhibiting the injection pulses supplied to the fuel injection units in response to a sensed engine load. The apparatus includes a forward-backward counter which operates in downward count mode to decrease the number of active cylinders when light load is sensed and in forward count mode to increase the number of active cylinders when heavy load is sensed. A ring counter is provided to generate recylically occurring pulses on its output terminals equal in number to said cylinders successively in response to the occurrence of each injection pulse. A logic circuit is connected to the ring counter to generate injection inhibit pulses equal in number to the inactive cylinders.
85 Citations
11 Claims
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1. Apparatus for controlling the injection of fuel to the cylinders of an electronically fuel injected internal combustion engine mounted on a roadway vehicle having means for generating injection pulses to be applied to the injection unit of each cylinder, comprising:
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means for sensing the magnitude of load exerted on said engine; means for varying the number of active cylinders such that the number of cylinders to be fuel-injected for ignition decreases one at a time when the sensed engine load is below a first predetermined value, increases one at a time when the sensed engine load is above a second predetermined value greater than the first predetermined value and maintains constant when the sensed engine load is between the first and second values; and means for inhibiting the injection of fuel to one or more cylinders corresponding in number to said number of inactive cylinders. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method for controlling the cylinders of an electronically fuel injected internal combustion engine mounted on a roadway vehicle by successively inactivating the cylinders in response to the engine load, comprising the steps of:
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sensing the magnitude of the engine load; operating the cylinders in one of different modes in response to the sensed engine load such that there is a different number of active and inactive cylinders for each mode; successively shifting the mode from one to another when the second engine load is below a predetermined level such that there is a smaller number of active cylinders than the previous mode of the amount of one active cylinder; successively shifting the mode from one to another when the sensed engine load is above a second predetermined level greater than the first predetermined level such that there is a greater number of active cylinders than the previous mode by the amount of one active cylinder; and maintaining the mode when the sensed engine load is between the first and second predetermined levels. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11)
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Specification