Patent ID: 7325537

Claim:
A method for controlling the pumping quantity of a high-pressure fuel pump for an internal combustion engine, the fuel pump having a piston oscillating in a cylinder bore, the cylinder bore and the piston defining a pumping chamber, and the pumping chamber communicating on the intake side with a low-pressure fuel line and on the compression side with a high-pressure fuel line and having a quantity control valve located between the low-pressure fuel line and the pumping chamber, the method comprising by the following method steps: interrupting the hydraulic communication between the pumping chamber and the low-pressure fuel line as soon as the piston moves from top dead center in the direction of bottom dead center; opening the hydraulic communication between the pumping chamber and the low-pressure fuel line, so that the fuel quantity to be pumped is aspirated into the pumping chamber before the piston, on the way from bottom dead center to top dead center, has reached a position from which the aspirated fuel quantity can be pumped into the high-pressure fuel line, while the piston moves to top dead center.