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Questions about high fuel pressure


Sambo

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Basically, my 4age is running really, really rich. I paid a bloke to throw a pressure gauge on the fuel rail, which read really high. It's got a smallish external pump running up mostly standard lines to the fuel rail, standard FPR dumping to the standard return. Also has a standard ecu. When driving it has a bit of hesitation (from memory), and the throttle is quite binary, making it hard to keep a constant speed. It usually idles high (1000+), when it does idle close to where it should (~500) it's lumpy/rough sounding.

 

Additional info: the car will run stationary all day with no problem (bar the clouds of grey smoke and afor mentioned idle issues). However, once it's being driven the fuel pump starts getting really noisy, the grey cloud gets worse and I think it gets so rich that it starts semi flooding/cutting out under throttle. - Does this sound like a potential symptom of too much pressure? In my mind, it should be worse at idle as it's using less fuel.

Lastly, I've tried two second hand FPRs, run a temporary fuel return line (check for blockage etc) and spent hours and hours fucking around with it, any other suggestions? For all I know, I've solved the high fuel pressure, but the richness remains.

 

The petrol in the tank is a bit discoloured and old, but smells ok, and the car starts really easy, even from cold.

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Thanks for the reply man, that's a good point. I'll shoot over to the car this arvo and reacquaint myself with the facts. The smoke definitely smells like fuel, rather than oil, but I'll take a video for your perusal and judgement.

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This seems somewhat similar (especially the noisy pump - does it get hot too?) to the problem I had with a 4AGE when the return line got kinked. Since you have run a temporary return it can't be that. I like Bigfoots suggestion. No chance that the actual in-tank return pipe is blocked somehow?

What fuel pressure are you actually getting?

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+1 "really high fuel pressure" is not a number - what was the actual figure? the usual number is 43.5psi/ 3 Bar  but some manufacturers occasionally run more or less. someone will know what a 4age is supposed to have if its different.

if the fuel pressure is within a few psi of where it should be, then to run rich the ecu is telling the injectors to put in more fuel than the engine needs.  not sure what the setup on your 4age is but it will be using some combination of air temperature, coolant temperature, manifold pressure, engine speed, throttle position and air flow (may use manifold pressure and speed, or a direct measurement via air flow meter). so would pay to check the wiring and the readings of those sensors where possible.

if it is running overly rich everywhere, then at idle the ignition probably has enough poke to light off the mixture but not when under load so it will start running shit when you try to accelerate hard or go up a hill etc.

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To be honest, I'm not too sure about the O2 sensor, I had kind of assumed that the ECU wouldn't have enough adjustment to flood the engine.

The fuel pressure was around 55psi iirc, I'll have it written down somewhere. 

 

The engine flooded this afternoon, then I flattened the battery trying to clear it, so no running video today. 

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Would a reasonable test for the temp sensors be to pull the plug off and see if the running condition changes? I've just done that, nothing seemed to change. They're in a pretty shitty place to actually remove..

I also unplugged the cold start injector, that made no difference either, idling or driving.

 

 

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