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Natural gas represents today a promising alternative to conventional fuels for road vehicles propulsion, since it is characterized by a relatively low cost, better geopolitical distribution than oil, and lower environmental impact. This explains the current spreading of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fuelled S. I. engine, above all in the bi-fuel version, i.e. capable to run either with gasoline or with natural gas. This characteristic, on the one hand, permits the vehicle to go even when natural gas is not available, on the other hand requires the engine to be designed to run safely with gasoline, i.e. with compression ratio lower than what natural gas would allow. Moreover the electronic control units are programmed to adopt rich mixture and poor spark advance when running with gasoline at medium-high loads, in order to prevent the engine from dangerous knocking phenomena: this causes an increase in fuel consumption and pollutant emissions.

Bi-fuel spark ignition engines, nowadays widely spread, are usually equipped with two independent injection systems, in order run the engine either with gasoline or with gaseous fuel, which can be Natural Gas (NG) or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). These gases, besides lower cost and environmental impact, are also characterized by a higher knock resistance with respect to gasoline that allows to adopt a stoichiometric proportion with air also at full load. Gasoline, on the other hand, being injected as liquid, maintains higher volumetric efficiency and hence higher power output.