We fixed it, well after we broke it even worse but in the end it got fixed.

After getting a box full of parts (including extra o-rings that we didn't need but new wouldn't be included if we didn't buy them) and since the weather decided to cooperate today we figured we'd get to work.

Since we knew that we had to replace the injectors we didn't bold the plenum back down so we figured it would be pretty quick.

According to the the manufacture service manual take off the plenum, unscrew the fuel input and return, remove 4 bolts and it pulls right up. Of course not. No matter how hard we pulled it wasn't budging. So maybe we could remove the retaining clips and the fuel injectors will pop right off the rails without them right. Nope, but with a little extra leverage from a big wrench they did start to pop off one at a time.

Doesn't look bad for 20+ years old. Where could the skilled craftsman who made this fine piece be from?

of course the fuel rail was fine the problem were the injectors that were still stuck on the engine.

Nothing a screwdriver, lineman pliers, swearing, and a bit of finesse couldn't fix.

Put the new injectors on the rails, put them back on the engine, persuade them to go in their place with a little help from the dead blow hammer, and put on the gaskets.

Put on the plenum and tighten them up. Realize we forgot reconnect the fuel lines to the rail, take off the plennum fight with the fuel lines, launch one of the fuel line o-rings under the fuel rail. Retrieve the o-ring with the skills learned from Operation. Get the fuel lines connected. Put the plenum back on and tighten it down. Connect the throttle body to the plenum. Tighten the 2 screws to spec and

Crack

Broke the plenum where the throttle body connects to it.

That hole is not good, so it meant it was time for a trip to the Summit Pick N Pull. Not something we really wanted to do today but the beauty of GM V6's is there are always a good selection in the yards.

When we pull up to the Pick N Pull saw a sign that our luck might be changing. I peer across the lot and see a rather Curvy looking Swede.

For Sale even

Found us a nice 2.8 Celebrity

Got it home bolted it all back together again, with all the extra practice we seem to have gotten this down. No cracks this time and fired it up. Starts with no problems which was an improvement. Went to pull the throttle and it actually startled me. The car has never revved so freely. The Car which has always grumbled like an old grumpy man, is sounding less old grumpy mannish.(not sure if its sounding less old or less grumpy) And as it warmed up and relearned how to idle it sounded even healthier.

So it looks like we finally figured out what was the problem the last race. The problem was that the Fuel pump was weak and not giving much fuel pressure, but what little fuel pressure it was giving the fuel injectors were not always giving the fuel to the engine, and even if some fuel made it into the cylinder there was no guarentee that there would be spark to ignite the fuel. Of course being that the car ran 14 hours like that makes us wonder what it will be like on the track this year.

I can't think of anything witty title for this blog entry

So more troubleshooting today.

We started the day by taking a trip to Harbor freight for the $20 Fuel Injection Pressure Tester, cause harbor frienght is where you go when you need something but don't expect to use it very often.  Of course when we left I realized I forgot to get the Teflon tape, cause a Harbor Freight $20 Fuel Injection Pressure Tester, atleast according to the online reviews, tends to leak if you don't use Teflon tape, So a quick stop at menards and we were all set.


Hook it up primed the system and it went right to 42 psi, which is between the 40.5-47 psi that the factory repair manual ( also an excellent $20 purchase) said it should be.  While cranking it stayed right there too, so it looks like the pump is good, pressure regulator is good and all that.  Still not wanting to start.  So figured the net step was to check the fuel injectors.

Unfortunately the fuel rail with the injectors is under the plenum which means we'd have to take it off.

Of course the throttle body and egr valve and vacuum hoses and map sensors and other stuff is all connected the plenum. But eventually we got enough stuff disconnects so we could get to them.

Once we started Ohming them out. Of course once we started we realized we didn't actually know what we should be looking for, but decided to write them down and look it up later.

First one we Ohmed to 12.6, it seemed like a good number. Well of to the next and we got 2.1. while not knowing what its suppose to be or what range is acceptable we were pretty sure that the range wouldn't be that wide. Well the 3rd should tell us which is right. We Ohm it and got 7.3, Pretty much smack dab in between them. At this point we are pretty sure we are getting all new injectors since they're all over the place, but we are still wanting to figure out which is work. The rest in order were 9.2, 12.7 and 10.7.

After a little of searching on the net we found out that they should be above 12, and you want them all to be within .5 of each other. So we basically have 2 that were in spec, one that was way out and 3 that are various degrees of bad.

So used the Rock Auto Discount that is over to the Left Right, and up a bit from this sentence and order 6 new injectors some gaskets and some o-rings. At least I didn't have to search for the Rock Auto Discount since the Rock Auto Discount is on this page. (I have also decided I will try and get extra hits on this blog by saying Rock Auto Discount a bunch of times so we will hopefully move up on the Rock Auto Discount search list on sites like Google or Yahoo, so when people lock for a Rock Auto Discount they will get the Rock Auto Discount Code from this Site. Maybe if enough people get their Rock Auto Discount Code from this blog Rock Auto would want to sponsor us and give us money and we can put a Rock Auto Discount on the car during the race)

The more things we fix...

This is probably the worst part of working on the car this year. It seems that the more we fix the worse the car runs, if at all. The only thing I could think of is that like Mr Burns, the car ran last year because of the Three Stooges syndrome.



So many things wrong that they somehow allowed the car to run.

So last weekend we dropped the fuel thank and replaced the fuel pump and sender and all those other parts. While doing that we found out that the vapor line had been snapped at sometime, so we find a way to replace that and get it connected to the sender. We then realized that the fuel return line quick connect was leaking so we repaired that, and now that the car was getting gas it should run right? Nope now it doesn't like to start. If you can when you start reving it sounds like spitting the fuel not like spraying it. After getting fed up and everyone leaving on saturday I thought I would look at it on sunday. Being an idiot I just pushed in the fuel pressure nozzle, and nothing. No hiss, no fuel nothin. I tried to start it and on the second start it fired up. Still wouldn't let me give it full throttle but atleast it started. I stopped it and it started back up. This time when I stupidly hit the valve it shot up fuel.

I figured I shouldn't start it after shooting gas on the engine, so I ran an errand or so and when I came back wouldn't start again.

Read up the trouble shooting section of the manual to figure out what might be the problem and it looks like maybe the fuel pressure regulator is messed up. It might have been always messed up but since there wasn't much fuel pressure it didn't really matter, but now that it is getting hit with some actual pressure it might just be flowing fuel straight from the inlet back out of the outlet not letting the fuel injectors get any, maybe.

Hopefully this will fix it cause now that all the cylinders are getting spark and might start getting fuel I'm really curious to see how it will run on the track since it somehow made it around the track a bunch of times without any of that stuff.

Of course maybe this will show something else that is wrong like the fact that the car never had pistons in it or something.

Pre-Fourth Fuel Line Fun

First off, let's be clear: at no point was this going to happen. I had plenty of experience the previous day with charring some potentially delicious baby back ribs to jerky and ash, and I wished to have no further experiences with excessive burnination. Excessive burnination is super bad, kiddies.

Ever since our misfiring/dying-out-when-hot issues (that's what she said) at the race, we've been hot on the trail of what could be wrong with the car, and to that end, with parts in hand, we decided to tackle the fuel system today.

When I pulled up, Duffy and Bob were already well on their way, under the car. I ran up excitedly with my toolbox with the "Craftsman" sticker still on it, and said, "Ok guys! What can I do!" Almost in unison, they both said, "Pump out the fuel tank." I @whee'd in excitement and slid under the car as fast as I could.

After a few times switching off between the three off us due to cramped hands, we finally got the fuel out to pull the tank off, and after a few taps of our trusty fully-grounded hydrospanner, we were able to remove and expose the fuel pump apparatus. While I took pictures, Duffy made the inside of the fuel tank sparkling clean and free of detritus.

After juggling around the pulsator and the fuel strainer thingy, we were able to assemble everything together and stuffed it back inside the fuel tank. Putting the fuel tank on took a little more time than what we had expected, and involved raising the car a bit more, but in the end, all the parts fit back into place without any leftover nuts and bolts, so that was successful.

With the fuel tank back in place, we now focused on putting on a new fuel pump and inspecting the fuel lines, return, sender, and vapor pipe. The quick-connects had a substantial amount of corrosion on them, and as such, might have been quick to connect but were a pain in the a$$ to disconnect. Additionally, Duffy spotted that a portion of the vapor pipe tubing had been damaged, and so a decision at this point was made to make some trips to our local parts store for some supplies. Unfortunately, it appears as though at least some of these tubing was different from what was on the car originally, so, after a few consults with the car and the book, it became obvious that we were going to have to special order the parts, after we find them. We took a break for dinner with Mrs. and Baby Duffy, and Bob and I began in earnest the search for the 'unrepairable' tubing. (yes, the tubing was clearly marked 'unrepairable,' but that did not deter us one bit!)

So, accomplishments for the day:

• new Fuel Pump / install
  
• new Fuel Filter / install
• Fuel line check / identification of trouble spots
• Purchase of a long funnel / vuvuzela

Next on the list is finding and obtaining the fuel line parts, most likely online. Specifically, this is what we are trying to do:

• The fuel vapor pipe is broken. We need to replace it, but we are trying to find the part number for this, and it's not found in our LFAPS (local friendly auto parts shop). The repair manual says that the pipe can be either metal (not aluminum or copper) or nylon, and we certainly have a nylon one.
• Fuel sender is cracked and old, we certainly need a new one, but it's a pistol to remove. Did the manual really say 'quick connect?' Ha. Maybe if you are Magnus Vermagnusson.
• We are trying to replace our fuel return line, and while certainly the OD is different, the ID seems to be the same, which is either going to be 3/8" or 5/16". Again, issues with the quick connect.
  

See ya next time!

track day fun

Today we spent the day working on the car and since Pete took the pics we decided he has to do the write up, so no talking about that now. Instead I'll write about the track day I did on Friday. It was originally planned for the North track but it was pretty full so they moved it from the North track to the South track because you could never fit 20 cars on the North track....

So my chance to get some good insight into the North Track fell through so it was just a chance to take the Legacy to the track and play with it, which you can't really complain about.

It happened that Grand Subaru sponsored the event and bought slots for a bunch of their customers to use so there were lots and lots of Subarus. All WRX's and STI's (mostly STI's I believe). I was placed in the beginner group since this is my first full track day with the heaviest, lowest horsepowered car in my beginner group, but I did bring the free for nothing Cisco Flip I had gotten with my horribly awful scotch tape and digital camera case tripod thingy. Posted below

Lots of helpful tips for the south course if you ever drive it and highlight include in the video of the 2nd session get to see how the legacy handles with 2 wheels in the dirt, cause you know its a Subaru therefor needs to spend some of its time playing in the dirt (not that I wasn't being patient in patience) 3rd session lots of lovely shots of the back of a vette, and proof that better lines can not always beat horsepower. Also my car is way to quiet, I think I need to poke holes in the exhaust system or something.