A system for controlling fuel metering in an internal combustion engine using a fluid dynamic model and the quantity of throttle-past air is determined therefrom. Based on the observation that the difference between the steady-state engine operating condition and the transient engine operating condition can be described as the difference in the effective throttle opening areas, the quantity of fuel injection is determined from the product of the ratio between the area and its first-order lag value and the quantity of fuel injection under the steady-state engine operating condition obtained by mapped data retrieval, and by subtracting the quantity of correction corresponding to the quantity of chamber-filling air. The effective throttle opening area's first order lag is calculated using a weight that varies with the engine speed, so that elongation or shortening of the TDC interval due to the decrease/increase of the engine speed will not affect the determination of the quantity of fuel injection.