As everyone knows, an internal combustion engine needs fuel to operate. Fuel is delivered to the engine by means of the fuel system. The system must be self-contained and efficient so that it will properly energize the engine and will take up as little space as possible necessary to its mechanical functioning. An internal combustion engine's fuel system is, literally, the heart of the engine.
Fuel systems today are most commonly associated with the automobile engine. When the automobile's fuel gauge nears empty, the driver must stop and get gas or diesel. The fuel is pumped from the gas/diesel pump down the filler tube into the automobile's fuel tank. This is the storage area for the fuel and where it begins its journey to the engine. A sender that is mounted in or on the fuel tank monitors the amount of fuel in the tank. This information is sent electrically through a relay and wiring to the fuel gauge.
When the engine is started, the fuel system is energized. Fuel is drawn from the fuel tank by means of the fuel pump which, on most late-model autos, is mounted in the fuel tank, often alongside the sender. The pump is usually operated electrically from the vehicles battery.
As the fuel system feeds fuel toward the engine, the fuel passes through one, sometimes two fuel filters. These filters may be mounted before or after the fuel pump, or, on some vehicles, both before and after the pump. The fuel filter is essentially a chamber where the fuel is circulated though an organic mesh cloth or paper and any dirt particles are filtered out. A fuel injector’s nozzle openings are minute and are therefore subject to clogging or sticking if the fuel is not completely particle-free.
From the fuel filter, the fuel system conveys the fuel to the fuel injectors for disbursal into the intake valves of the engine cylinders. Fuel injectors in modern automobiles, those built subsequent to 1986, replace carburetors as the preferred method of introducing fuel into the combustion chamber of the engine. In modern systems, fuel injectors are basically computer-controlled valves. Properly operated via computer commands, fuel injectors are capable of opening and closing hundreds of times per second. The fuel injectors will inject, or shoot, fuel directly into the combustion chamber of the engine where it is ignited by the spark plugs and the energy from this detonation drives the crankcase and hence, the automobile.
Proper maintenance of an engine's fuel system is crucial to economically and ecologically efficient operation.