Patent ID: 7347179

Claim:
A method for operating a four-stroke internal combustion engine having at least one cylinder with a cyclically changing combustion chamber volume and at least one inlet valve and at least one outlet valve, said method comprising the following steps: injecting fuel directly into the at least one combustion chamber of the internal combustion engine, supplying to said combustion chamber fresh gas through said at least one intake valve and discharging combustion exhaust gas through said at least one exhaust valve, forming, at part-load operation of said engine, a lean base mix of air, fuel and retained exhaust gas, and forming, at full load a stoichiornetric fuel/air mix, compressing the mixture so as to initiate compression ignition at part-load operation of the engine and providing for spark ignition during full load engine operation, and correcting in the part-load operating range of the engine, in the event of an increase in engine speed, a principle-based shift of the combustion toward early by a shift in the phase location of at least one of the intake and the exhaust phase provided by the intake and exhaust valves.