This was a FIAT automotive engine (common rail 1.9) transformed in an aereonatic engine. It was installed in general aviation and UAV.
The first application of the avionization of the common rail 1.9 wasborn from a collaboration with the University of Bologna Department of Engineering, FIAT Research Center, and IAI. This engine was installed by IAI on their aircraft called "HERON".
The engine is still used by IAI, in fact the Heron was presented at the Air Show in Singapore in 2014.
Subsequently the same engine (the common rail 1.9 avionized) was also requested by ALENIA SpA (Leonardo Company), the largest Italian aviation industry, and installed on the Sky-Y UAV in 2007, achieving the European endurance record (flightduration).
In 2008, Giunchi, began negotiations with a large industryAmerican Air Force, Lycoming, which lead to the assignment of the construction in the United States of the avionized common rail 1.9 engine. Lycoming itself still supplies this engine called DEL 120, it is present in the Lycoming catalogue, and the American General Atomic industry installs it on the Predator UAV.
Also the American CESSNA, the first industry in the world in the general aviation sector, installs it supplied by Lycoming on the CC172 aircraft.