Development of   direct injection stratified charge engines started in 1950s when Mercedes Benz developed an engine employing mechanical injection system. It was followed by development of two very widely known DISC engine prototypes during 1960s: Ford Programmed Combustion (PROCO) engine and Texaco’s Stratified Charge (TCCS) engine. Both of these engines employed mechanical jerk type fuel injection systems.   These engines could not be put into production as maintaining proper charge stratification under all engine loads and speeds was not possible. Moreover, the spray was directed very close to spark plug, which resulted in frequent spark plug fouling and also emission of black smoke at high engine loads.
During early 1970s, Honda developed a divided chamber stratified charge engine using two carburettor. A small carburettor provided rich mixture to the auxiliary small chamber where spark plug ignited the mixture. The lean carburettor supplied mixture to the main chamber and the overall mixture in the engine was significantly leaner than stoichiometric.  The burning mixture from the small chamber flowed via a small throat into the main chamber like in the divided chamber diesel engines. This engine was called Honda CVCC (compound vortex combustion chamber) engine. The Honda CVCC engine had high fluid dynamic and heat transfer losses, and it also required catalytic aftertreatment for the medium size and bigger cars to comply with the then US emission standards.  The production of this engine did not continue much longer.
During 1990s, fuel economy improvement to reduce emissions of CO₂, a greenhouse gas became a major thrust of research. As the DISC engine has the potential to give high fuel efficiency at part loads, it resulted into a renewed interest in DISC engine development. Mitsubishi and Toyota Motors introduced DISC engine powered cars during mid 1990s. These engines operate in stratified mode at part loads and in stoichiometric mode at high loads.

Potential Advantages of DISC Engines

 The  direct injection stratified charge SI engines have the potential to provide following advantages over the premixed homogeneous charge engines;

• The mixture being rich near spark plug good ignition characteristics without misfire are obtained.
• High combustion temperatures obtained as a result of initial burning of rich mixtures near spark plug produce high flame speeds that burn the lean mixtures in the cylinder away from spark plug.
• The overall air-fuel ratio can be very lean reaching 40:1 to 50:1giving high fuel efficiency.
• An unthrottled engine operation is possible such that the engine power may be controlled by varying only the fuel flow. It would reduce pumping losses.
• The end gases being very fuel lean, precombustion reactions would be very slow leading to reduced knocking tendency. Hence, a higher compression ratio can be used further  improving the fuel efficiency.
• Presence of rich mixture near spark plug keeps the formation of NO_x at low levels. The mixture that burns early is deficient in oxygen although it attains high combustion temperatures.