paul p
08-30-2002, 04:41 PM
So, last Sat. at the Chi-town picnic i ran off in the middle of the festivities to pick up my front control arms from Autozone. ES bushings and new ball joints. WhooHoo. Figured i would have the afternoon and evening to finish this install. Pop in the fuel injectors that i had gotten rebuilt localy as well and possibly even get a good nights sleep before the BMW AutoX Sun. WRONGO! BTW i was worried bout the control arms, thought the injectors would be a piece of cake.
Although everything was assembled by 10pm, 'Teddy' didn't leave the garage till a few days later. I finally gave up at 2am, packed up my AutoX gear into 'Helga' and headed to bed, realizing that once again i'm gonna be sleepin thru walkin the course on Sun. =(
What was the problem? A no start condition caused my MASSIVE flooding. Unfortunatley i did not discover the cause till Mon night. One of the injectors was spewing sooo much that it must have almost completely filled the cylinder, preventing the engine from even turning over. Think i'm kidding, i even tried rolling the car in 5th just to see if i could get the engine to turn. NADA. I thought it was a problem w/ the starter (discussed here-->http://www.sr20deforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=196712#post196712) but it would turn maybe a degree or two and then "KLUNK" against something. Really had me stumped. One negative side effect was that the ground wire mentioned in the other post (attached to the body by the coolant ex tank) got so hot it was smoking it's insulation! Esp. when i was using a batt charger in boost mode. DOH!
Other clues. Monday night the only way to get the engine to run was to pull the fuel pump fuse. It ran like that for several minutes, didn't die, i just shut it down cause well, that's obviously wacked. It wouldn't idle. I started the install w/ a quarter tank of gas, i needed to refill on Tuesday. Spark plugs were BLACK and reeked of gas, as did the rest of the engine. Finaly when i pulled the rail on Mon you could see gas pouring out inbetween the injector tip and the rail hole. As of Tues nite i was at least running and idling (somewhat) on 2 cylinders.
Why so f-ed up?
Well, i'm not sure because i only glanced at one of the injectors after the rebuild and then popped em in, BUT there is the possiblility the shop didn't put on new O-rings. Also since it took a bit of force to break the cap screws loose, i assumed that a strong tightening w/ a med size screwdriver would be about the right amount of torque. Once i actually dug out my screw drive sockets and torqued em to spec found that that was WAY to tight. When i pulled the injectors back out of the rail the o-rings were in BAD shape, i was able to pull them off w/ my fingers. Kinda chewed up as well. The new ones (i of course picked up a set Wed), required a "pick" to circle them into place. Even bought new cap and manifold insulators, just cause i'm usually anal like that (when i'm not are the times i usually get burned, broken bolts, stripped threads, leaky fuel rail, that kinda shit).
Now 'Teddy' runs and idles no problem. In fact startup is even more instantaneous, cool.
UNfortunately the slight miss at idle and lower RPMs is still there, grrrr. That was the main reason i pulled the injectors in the first place (not to mention possibly freeing up some horsepower maybe). I've done everything else xcept a new (to me) engine, no really. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, fuel filter, O2 sensor, timing chain tensioner (back a bit), even extra charging of the battery. Heck even checked compression and netted 182, 178, 183 and 182 psi.
Oh yeah, starter still squeals like a pig, 125K miles and counting. I've now been driving the Classic exclusively since Wed night. No problems.* Whew*
Nice to get behind the wheel of this little sleeper again. Is it quittin time yet?
Lessons learned. FI o-rings are too cheap not to change them considering the potential for toruble w/ old ones.
Torque specs are listed for a reason, even if you don't have the t-wrench. You at least get an idea.
Although everything was assembled by 10pm, 'Teddy' didn't leave the garage till a few days later. I finally gave up at 2am, packed up my AutoX gear into 'Helga' and headed to bed, realizing that once again i'm gonna be sleepin thru walkin the course on Sun. =(
What was the problem? A no start condition caused my MASSIVE flooding. Unfortunatley i did not discover the cause till Mon night. One of the injectors was spewing sooo much that it must have almost completely filled the cylinder, preventing the engine from even turning over. Think i'm kidding, i even tried rolling the car in 5th just to see if i could get the engine to turn. NADA. I thought it was a problem w/ the starter (discussed here-->http://www.sr20deforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=196712#post196712) but it would turn maybe a degree or two and then "KLUNK" against something. Really had me stumped. One negative side effect was that the ground wire mentioned in the other post (attached to the body by the coolant ex tank) got so hot it was smoking it's insulation! Esp. when i was using a batt charger in boost mode. DOH!
Other clues. Monday night the only way to get the engine to run was to pull the fuel pump fuse. It ran like that for several minutes, didn't die, i just shut it down cause well, that's obviously wacked. It wouldn't idle. I started the install w/ a quarter tank of gas, i needed to refill on Tuesday. Spark plugs were BLACK and reeked of gas, as did the rest of the engine. Finaly when i pulled the rail on Mon you could see gas pouring out inbetween the injector tip and the rail hole. As of Tues nite i was at least running and idling (somewhat) on 2 cylinders.
Why so f-ed up?
Well, i'm not sure because i only glanced at one of the injectors after the rebuild and then popped em in, BUT there is the possiblility the shop didn't put on new O-rings. Also since it took a bit of force to break the cap screws loose, i assumed that a strong tightening w/ a med size screwdriver would be about the right amount of torque. Once i actually dug out my screw drive sockets and torqued em to spec found that that was WAY to tight. When i pulled the injectors back out of the rail the o-rings were in BAD shape, i was able to pull them off w/ my fingers. Kinda chewed up as well. The new ones (i of course picked up a set Wed), required a "pick" to circle them into place. Even bought new cap and manifold insulators, just cause i'm usually anal like that (when i'm not are the times i usually get burned, broken bolts, stripped threads, leaky fuel rail, that kinda shit).
Now 'Teddy' runs and idles no problem. In fact startup is even more instantaneous, cool.
UNfortunately the slight miss at idle and lower RPMs is still there, grrrr. That was the main reason i pulled the injectors in the first place (not to mention possibly freeing up some horsepower maybe). I've done everything else xcept a new (to me) engine, no really. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, fuel filter, O2 sensor, timing chain tensioner (back a bit), even extra charging of the battery. Heck even checked compression and netted 182, 178, 183 and 182 psi.
Oh yeah, starter still squeals like a pig, 125K miles and counting. I've now been driving the Classic exclusively since Wed night. No problems.* Whew*
Nice to get behind the wheel of this little sleeper again. Is it quittin time yet?
Lessons learned. FI o-rings are too cheap not to change them considering the potential for toruble w/ old ones.
Torque specs are listed for a reason, even if you don't have the t-wrench. You at least get an idea.