The effect of the shape of the side wall on vaporization and fuel mixture were investigated for the impinging spray of a direct injection(DI) gasoline engine under a variety of conditions using the LIEF technique. The characteristics of the impinging spray were investigated under various configurations of piston cavities. To simulate the effect of piston cavity configurations and injection timing in an actual DI gasoline engine, the parameters were horizontal distance from the spray axis to side wall and vertical distance from nozzle tip to impingement plate. Prior to investigating the side wall effect, experiments on free and impinging sprays for flat plates were conducted and these results were compared with those of the side wall impinging spray. For each condition, the impingement plate was located at three different vertical distances(Z=46.7, 58.4, and 70 mm) below the injector tip and the rectangular side wall was installed at three different radial distances(R=15, 20, and 25 mm) from the spray axis. Radial propagation velocity from spray axis along impinging plate became higher with increasing ambient temperature. When the ambient pressure was increased, propagation speed reduced. High ambient pressures tended to prevent the impinging spray from the propagating radially and kept the fuel concentration higher near the spray axis. Regardless of ambient pressure and temperature fully developed vortices were generated near the side wall with nearly identical distributions, however there were discrepancies in the early development process. A relationship between the impingement distance(Z) and the distance from the side wall to the spray axis(R) was demonstrated in this study when R=20 and 25 mm and Z=46.7 and 58.4 mm. Fuel recirculation was achieved by adequate side wall distance. Fuel mixture stratification, an adequate piston cavity with a shorter impingement distance from the injector tip to the piston head should be required in the central direct injection system.