Fyda Energy Solutions has been awarded an Alternative Fuel Incentive Grant for $375,000 to continue its work developing techniques for converting existing gasoline and diesel trucks to run on compressed natural gas.

Fyda Energy Solutions was formed to reduce our country’s dependency on foreign oil, promote environmental safety and economically support the transportation industry.

Fyda Energy’s focus has been on developing ways to convert a wide variety of existing engines to switch seamlessly from liquid fuels to alternative fuels, such as CNG or LPG. The grant is aimed towards the creation of retrofit kits for gasoline direct injection engines. The grants are awarded through the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection under Act 13.

Gasoline Direct Injection is a variant of fuel injection employed in modern four-stroke gasoline engines. The gasoline is highly pressurized, and injected via a common rail fuel line directly into the combustion chamber of each cylinder, as opposed to conventional multi-point fuel injection that happens in the intake manifold, or cylinder port. In some applications, gasoline direct injection enables a stratified fuel charge (ultra lean burn) combustion for improved fuel efficiency, and reduced emission levels at low load.

The major advantages of a GDI engine are increased fuel efficiency and high power output. Emissions levels can also be more accurately controlled with the GDI system. The cited gains are achieved by the precise control over the amount of fuel and injection timings that are varied according to engine load. In addition, there are no throttling losses in some GDI engines, when compared to a conventional fuel-injected or carbureted engine, which greatly improves efficiency, and reduces 'pumping losses' in engines without a throttle plate. Engine speed is controlled by the engine control unit/engine management system, which regulates fuel injection function and ignition timing, instead of having a throttle plate that restricts the incoming air supply.