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In today's gasoline engines we say they have fuel injection however it isn't the same as diesel fuel injection in most gasoline injection engines. In most gasoline cars the fuel is injected into the intake manifold just before it enters the cylinder, so, yes you could and would have predetonation in a high compression engine. As I understand the newer engines that use pressure/heat for detonation the fuel is injected just like a diesel, Direct Injection the fuel is injected near TDC so that it fires immediately. With immediate detonation there is no time for predetonation.

Direct injection of gasoline in engines with spark ignition is starting to become more widespread as it is generally more efficient especially at low load conditions. DI creates a stratified charge situation depending on the method of DI by injecting the gasoline at a particular spot on the top of the piston which makes the fuel and air swirl just prior to detonation. With DI gasoline can be injected into a cylinder more than once during the stroke again adding power after the detonation has started.

Di (Direct Injection) is complicated and requires a computer to manage correctly taking many inputs such as oxygen content, pressure, temperature, RPM’s and power required, the gas pedal.

Since Gasoline engines generally provide about 25% of the power produced when gasoline is burned that means that 3/4’s of it is wasted in the radiator. DI can improve that to over 30%.

Eventually when we get rid of the valve train with opposed piston designs we will get near 40%. When we learn to make high temperature ceramic parts we will be able to get over 50%. Think of that, if a car today gets 35MPG it would get 70. Talk about being energy independent. . .

Gasoline technology has a long way to go and will be around for a long time.