Fuel problem in KE70 4AGE.

[poida]

I had fuel starvation issue in my ta22. The pipe fittings of where the breather and fuel lines enter the tank were lose as a goose... very lose. Caused air to be fed into the fuel system.. Im not sure what the ke70 lines look like but i had two bolts that connected the steel fuel lines to the tank. This problems became evident when I was at a track day at high revs for a long time... Have you tried hard wiring the pumps with no relay just to rule out the relay wiring?

[Sprinter-Saurus]

im thinking possibly its a dud lift pump but we're gonna run a bigger hard line into the tank and see if that sorts it just to makle sure its not a feed problem.

Remember though that it still did it with the old crappy no-name lift pump in there also, I really doubt it's the lift pump seeing as it's a brand new Carter.

The weird thing is that the car ran perfectly fine for about 4 days, with about 30 mins + of driving each day, before the problem came back. I thought I'd solved the problem by drilling a small hole in the fuel filler cap to release the pressure from the fuel tank, it ran fine for those 4 days after that until it stuffed up again on Thursday.

How this problem can be so intermittent and temperamental really does fuck with my head.

[Sprinter-Saurus]

mmm. thinking about it; is your fuel filter an EFI fuel filter or carby fuel filter......slight flow difference...

Both. We have an EFI filter in the engine bay which is obviously the main one, and then we have a small carby filter between the tank and the lift pump just to catch any shit that comes out of the tank so the lift pump doesn't get filled with junk.

Id go with this one. BTW 50psi seems a bit high on idle/startup?

Do you have an adjustable reg or standard reg?

If you remove the vaccum hose on the fuel reg does fuel come out? (apparently this is what happens when they go) id still swap it even if it seems fine.

Also injectors not have a wiring issue or is this ruled out now?

It wasn't QUITE 50psi, probably 40-something, and it was after the car had been running for about 15 minutes. The fuel reg is standard. No fuel came out of the reg when I removed the vacuum hose. Injectors and their wiring and plugs seem all A OK, haven't ruled relays yet though, but I doubt the relays are the cause of the problem.

fuel pressure reg on the rail playing up?

As above, I tested it by removing the vacuum hose and it seemed fine.

i might be stating the obvious, but have you eliminated fuel filters?

We removed the metal fuel filter from the engine bay and blew it out and no crap or rubbish came out, just clean fuel.


OK, so about 10 minutes ago we warmed the car up after tightening everything up again, and it ran fine just idling in the backyard for around 15 minutes, BUT as soon as we got it out into the street and put the engine under load the problem was there immediately, but when you just flatten the throttle and obviously more fuel is poured into the mix it seems to clean out the rough idle and runs smooth again. We drove it for around 20 minutes, and the problem didn't get worse, but it didn't completely go away either.

The VL pump was still being noisy as all fuck the whole time, and it whined pretty badly a few times, but still kept running, and it doesn't die or anything when the rough idle presents itself.

Any other ideas or things to try.

[LeeRoy]

If the pump is whining it is more than likely due to it sucking air. When theres no fuel in them the pumps rpm will increase as there is no resistance. Sounds as though you have either a problem with your lift pump or theres a blockage in the line before your high pressure pump.

[3BarSuperstar]

What computer are you running? It sounds like you might have more that one problem!

[rob-ae86]

What computer are you running? It sounds like you might have more that one problem!

Just a stock ECU, but we dont think its that problem, we took the engine & wiring out of a car that was running fine the only thing we did different was the fuel setup

[EVOSTi]

stock computer. engine ran sweet in my car, only difference between the two cars is he is running a surge tank with different pumps, i only ran a VL pump on its own.

if youre not work tomoz bring it round my place, me and chris will be home working on the srke.

[rob-ae86]

If the pump is whining it is more than likely due to it sucking air. When theres no fuel in them the pumps rpm will increase as there is no resistance. Sounds as though you have either a problem with your lift pump or theres a blockage in the line before your high pressure pump.

On the lift pump were not sure its that, we thought that at first then replaced it with a new carter one, still the same problem

[Sprinter-Saurus]

We'll change the in-tank pick-up, put a new VL pump in, change the metal fuel filter, and I'll put on another fuel regulator that I've got in the shed, if none of that works well then we'll have to find someone who can exorcise demons from cars, 'cos I'm sure this car is cursed.

if youre not work tomoz bring it round my place, me and chris will be home working on the srke.

I'm on holidays now K-Unit, I'll come over after I go to Bunnings. The Corolla doesn't make it 200m down the road let alone 20km to your place haha, I'll come over in the Lux.

[rob-ae86]

bah just drive it there, it will make it

[Cuzzo]

So it stalls only under load?

idle its fine, load its not.

timing? map sensor?

[Sprinter-Saurus]

It doesn't actually stall per se', it just gets a rough idle happening, and then sounds like it drops a cylinder, it literally sounds like a lawnmower when it does it, and if you apply light throttle it runs really rough and sounds shocking, but if you flatten the throttle it clears out the rough idle and sounds normal again for a few seconds until the roughness and 3-cylinder noise come back.

It takes about 10/15 minutes of this bullshit AND then it finally stalls as by then the fuel pressure is almost nothing.

When we first start the car it runs perfectly, it literally takes 20 minutes for this problem to show up, and around another 10 minutes and then it dies, the problem just comes on gradually and gets worse along the way. After it dies, if you leave it for about 15 minutes and start it back up again it runs sweet as.

[Cuzzo]

Have you tested what voltage either pumps are getting when it fails?

Run two wires piggybacked off the power supply to a multimeter and re-create the scenario.