Measuring fuel consumption

A discussion in another thread about the operation of a diesel injection pump got me to thinking. If I could determine the position of the fuel rack, or whatever controls the injection quantity, I would know the amount of fuel injected with every stroke. Combine that with RPM and that give me fuel flow. This would eliminate having to actually measure fuel flow going to the pump and the return flow.

Obviously sensing the position of the fuel rack is not something that could be added, or could it, but has a manufacturer ever come up with a system like that?

Any thoughts,

Bob

Bob,
I've thought about that too. It would seem one could determine fuel consumption rather accurately that route at full throttle (or full rack or whatever) but at cruise one could hardly be accurate. And what if all the fuel didn't have time to get through the injector knozzels?

If I really needed to know (and I certainly don't) I'd consider an accurately graduated flask or bottle attached to the engine fuel hose. One would need to unhook the fuel hose, rig it up, make runs observe the burn rate and then hook it back up again and bleed the air out of the engine. Some or many of us could probably use practice w the latter anyway.

The fuel lines between the injection pump and the injectors are always full of fuel. If there was air in them it would just compress instead of forcing the injectors to open.

I think this would be accurate throughout the range. Anybody have a spare injection pump to practice with?

Bob