In this work, a single cylinder conventional spark ignition engine was converted to operate with hydrogen using the timed manifold fuel injection technique. A solenoid operated gas injector was used to inject hydrogen into the inlet manifold at the specified time. A dedicated electronic circuit developed for this work was used to control the injection timing and duration. The spark timing was set to minimum advance for best torque (MBT). The engine was operated at the wide-open throttle condition. For comparison of results, the same engine was also run on gasoline. The performance and emission characteristics with hydrogen and gasoline are compared. From the results, it is found that there is a reduction of about 20% in the peak power output of the engine when operating with hydrogen. The brake thermal efficiency with hydrogen is about 2% greater than that of gasoline. A lean limit equivalence ratio of about 0.3 could be attained with hydrogen as compared to 0.83 with gasoline. CO, CO2 and HC emissions were negligible with hydrogen operation. However, for hydrogen operation, NOx emission was four times higher than that of gasoline at full load power. The best ignition timing for hydrogen was much retarded when compared to gasoline. The effect of hydrogen injection pressure was also studied and no specific changes were observed. The effect of operating speed was also studied. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.