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US 10,704,482 B2Granted
System and method for mitigating wet-fouling of spark plugs
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorAed M. Dudar
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and systems are provided for drying a wet-fouled spark plug during engine flooding conditions. In one example, a method may include, reverse rotating the engine unfueled and activating a heating element of an exhaust catalyst to flow heated ambient air through the combustion chamber to dry the wet-fouled spark plug.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- in response to flooding a combustion chamber of a spark ignition engine with fuel during an engine start attempt, shutting off fuel delivery to the combustion chamber, activating a heating element of a catalyst coupled to an exhaust passage of the engine, and spinning the engine in reverse to flow air heated by the heating element to the combustion chamber via the exhaust passage.
A method, comprising:
- prior to start of an engine having one or more cylinders, each coupled to a spark-plug, during conditions of spark plug wet-fouling, drying the spark plugs by routing heated air through the one or more cylinders while the engine is reverse rotated, the air heated by a heater coupled to an electrically heated catalyst (EHC) which is positioned in an exhaust passage of the engine.
A system, comprising:
- a vehicle, including an autonomous vehicle and/or a hybrid vehicle;
- an electric machine;
- an engine including one or more cylinders, an intake passage, and an exhaust passage, each cylinder including a spark plug;
- an intake throttle coupled to the intake passage;
- an electrically heated catalyst (EHC) including an electric heater, and an oxygen sensor coupled to the exhaust passage;
- and
- a controller with computer readable instructions stored on non-transitory memory that when executed during an engine-off condition, and during an indication of engine flooding and prior to an engine start, cause the controller to:
- activate the electric heater of the EHC;
- dry each cylinder simultaneously by providing a heated airflow from the exhaust passage to the one or more cylinders via the EHC;
- and
- in response to each of a generation of secondary pulses by spark plugs coupled to each cylinder and the electric heater temperature of the EHC increasing above a light-off temperature, deactivate the electric heater.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.