This paper presents experimental study results of a direct injection engine fed with methanol steam reforming products and devised to work with a high-pressure thermo-chemical recuperation system. The influence of injection pressure and timing on heat release rate, fuel mass fraction burned, cycle-to-cycle variation, pollutant emissions, efficiency and exhaust gas energy available for methanol reforming is investigated and analyzed. Effect of injector flow area on the required injection pressure is discussed. End of-injection (EOI) timing is shown to be the main influencing factor on engine efficiency and pollutant emissions. The obtained results indicate that there is a range of EOI timing where indicated efficiency is almost constant and NO. emissions drop by a factor of 2.5. Particle number emissions can be reduced in this range by a factor of 4. We showed that engine exhaust gas possesses enough energy to sustain endothermic reforming reactions up to excess air ratio of 2.5. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.