Method and device for injecting fuel into the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine

A device for injecting fuel into the combustion chamber of an internal combustion comprising:

• at least one prefeed pump for feeding fuel from a tank,
• at least one high-pressure pump, and
• an injector,
• wherein
• the prefeed pump and the high-pressure pump are arranged such that the high-pressure fuel fed by the high-pressure pump is supplied to the injector,
• the injector has an injection nozzle with an axially movable nozzle needle protruding into a control chamber which can be fed with fuel under pressure and whose pressure is controllable by a control valve which opens or closes at least one inflow or outflow duct for fuel,
• a branch duct is connected between the prefeed pump (2) and the high-pressure pump (3) for branching off a partial volume of fuel as a flushing volume, said branch duct being connected with a flushing channel (28) of the injector (4),
• the flushing channel (28) opens into the control valve (7) in a manner that the flushing volume at least partially flows through the control valve (7) and,
• the branch duct is conducted through a heat exchanger (31) for adjusting the temperature of the flushing volume in terms of cooling the flushing volume during engine operation to lower the temperature load and heating the flushing volume to accelerate the engine start.