Injection Pump - Construction

Construction

Earlier diesel pumps used an in-line layout with a series of cam-operated injection cylinders in a line, rather like a miniature inline engine. The pistons have a constant stroke volume, and injection volume (i.e., throttling) is controlled by rotating the cylinders against a cut-off port that aligns with a helical slot in the cylinder. When all the cylinders are rotated at once, they simultaneously vary their injection volume to produce more or less power from the engine. Inline pumps still find favour on large multi-cylinder engines such as those on trucks, construction plant, static engines and agricultural vehicles.

For use on cars and light trucks, the rotary pump or distributor pump was developed. It uses a single injection cylinder driven from an axial cam plate, which injects into the individual fuel lines via a rotary distribution valve. Later incarnations such as the Bosch VE pump vary the injection timing with crank speed to allow greater power at high crank speeds, and smoother, more economical running at slower revs. Some VE variants have a pressure-based system that allows the injection volume to increase over normal to allow a turbocharger or supercharger equipped engine to develop more power under boost conditions.

All injection pumps incorporate a governor to cut fuel supply if the crank speed endangers the engine - the heavy moving parts of diesel engines do not tolerate overspeeding well, and catastrophic damage can occur if they are over-revved.