Ngk Spark Plug Company, Limited

Nissan Motor Company Limited

Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

Sadao Ichikawa

Hiroshi Kondo

Seishi Yasuhara

Tetsusyo Yamada

Shinichi Yokoi

Tuyoshi Kamiya

An A/F detector having an output which is unambiguous over the entire operating region of the device, including both fuel-rich and fuel-lean regions. The detector includes two cells, an electrochemical cell and a pump cell. A constant current is passed through the electrochemical cell and the current through the pump cell is controlled in such a manner that the voltage across the electrochemical cell is constant. The current through the pump cell is detected to provide the unambiguous output signal.

Air/fuel ratio detector

Electric currents are applied to parallel-connected glow plugs for preheating, to serial-connected glow plugs for running, and to intermittently reconnected parallel/serial glow plugs for cranking.

Method of applying electric current to glow plugs and device therefor

An apparatus for controlling energization of quick-heating glow plugs in an internal combustion engine comprises a power supply, a main relay having a normally open contact, a transfer-type changeover terminal having a neutral terminal, a normally closed terminal connected to ground, and a normally open contact connected to the power supply, a plurality of pairs of glow plugs, the glow plugs having one terminals connected through the normally open contact to the power supply, the glow plugs in each pair having one of other terminals grounded and the other terminal connected to the neutral contact, and a control circuit for controlling the main and changeover relays to connect the glow plugs in each pair selectively in series or parallel to each other with respect to the power supply.

Apparatus for controlling energization of glow plugs

A controller for controlling the combustion timing of an internal combustion engine and a method for controlling the ignition timing of an internal combustion engine in which variations in combustion timing as detected from the pressure in the combustion chamber of the engine and the intensity of knocking are simultaneously detected and the ignition timing corrected to provide optimum combustion efficiency at all times. From the sensed pressure in the combustion chamber, the crank angle at which the maximum pressure occurs is determined. If the crank angle thus determined exceeds a first reference value, a first ignition time correcting signal is generated. If the knocking intensity exceeds a second reference value, a second ignition timing correcting signal is generated. The output signal utilized to correct the ignition timing is produced by selecting one of the two ignition timing correcting signals thus generated, wherein the second ignition timing correcting signal has priority over the first ignition timing correcting signal.

Growing community of inventors

Aichi, Japan

Sadao Ichikawa