Gasoline Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion is a new combustion concept. Unlike the conventional internal combustion engine, the premixed fuel mixture with high residual gas rate is auto-ignited and burned without flame propagation. There are several operating factors which affect HCCI combustion such as start of combustion (SOC), residual gas fraction, engine rpm, etc. Among these factors SOC is a critical factor in the combustion because it affects exhaust gas emissions, engine power, fuel economy and combustion characteristics. Therefore SOC of gasoline HCCI should be controlled precisely, and SOC detection should be preceded SOC control. This paper presents a control oriented SOC detection method using 50 percent normalized difference pressure. Normalized difference pressure is defined as the normalized value of difference pressure and difference pressure is difference between the in-cylinder firing pressure and the motoring pressure. These methods were verified through the HCCI combustion experiments. The SOC detection method using difference pressure provides a fast and precise SOC detection.