Fuel injector assembly with an alcohol sensor

Claim 1

A fuel injector assembly for injecting a fuel supplied from a fuel tank into an intake manifold of an internal combustion engine, comprising: a hollow cylindrical fuel delivery member having formed on a circumferential side wall thereof nozzles each having a valve adapted to inject the fuel supplied from said fuel tank into said intake manifold of the internal combustion engine; a pair of opposing metallic plates disposed in said hollow cylindrical fuel delivery member along a path of flow of the fuel supplied from said fuel to said valves, thereby guiding the flow of the fuel in such a way that the fuel flows through a gap formed between said pair of opposing metallic plates; capacitance measuring means electrically coupled to said pair of opposing metallic plates for measuring a capacitance of a capacitor formed by said pair of opposing metallic plates and the fuel flowing therebetween; dielectric constant computing means, coupled to said capacitance measuring means, for computing a dielectric constant of the fuel flowing between said opposing metallic plates, from the capacitance measured by said capacitance measuring means; alcohol content computing means, coupled to said dielectric constant computing means, for computing an alcohol content of the fuel from the dielectric constant computed by said dielectric constant computing means; and control means, coupled to said alcohol content computing means, for controlling an amount of fuel injected into said intake manifold in accordance with the alcohol content computed by said alcohol content computing means.