Fuel Injector types

Fuel injectors come in many designs depending on where and how the they are used.
There are a couple of additional system types not mentioned here, but this will cover 95% of the gasoline injected vehicles out there to date.

Top-feed

Top-feed injectors have the gasoline entering from the in the top and exits the bottom.

These early designs had provisions for a rubber hoses to be attached to top.
These are called hose-end injectors.

Bosch hose-endJECS hose-end

 

Next in this category are the most common type of top-feed injectors. The use an o-ring on the fuel inlet that slips into a fuel rail. As you can see they come in many different shapes and sizes.

small toop-feeddenso top-feed2Multec top-feedBosch top-feedDelphi top-feed

 

Side-feed

Side-feed injectors differ since the fuel enters on the side on the injector and they actually fit inside the fuel rail and the bottom protrudes from it.

 

denso side-feedJECS side-feeddenso side-feed2

 

Throttle Body Injectors

Or TBI, for short, they reside in a throttle body that is located where a carburetor would have been. Both side and top-feed injector types have been used in these applications. This is not common anymore since the injectors are moving closer to the cylinders all the time.

 

TBI side-feedGM TBIStarion TBI

Gasoline Direct Injectors

Or GDI, these injectors shoot the fuel directly into the combustion chamber. These are just being used on a few engines now in the USA now.
Since we don't know to any test equipment that can clean or properly test these to date, so we will just give them a mention here.