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Fuel injector failures

  • Thread starter Thread starter tonylong
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tonylong

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I'm curious about the causes of injector failure and what "reconditioning" can accomplish. If the resistance drops does this mean the insulation in the power coils has been eroded away? - thereby causing shorts, and dropping resistance. If so - will any "reconditioning" fix this problem?
If the resistance is decent across all injectors - but the orifice is plugged due to (what?) then can cleaners be useful? , and how long will any fix last? I'm facing likely injector problems with my 89, I don't mind going the recondition route of it's worthwhile, but I don't want to throw away the cost of 6-8 labor hours on a useless part. Getting new parts is safer, but way more costly.
 
I had two injectors fail. Low ohm readings three yrs ago. I replaced only those two. Now I have two more that are bad.
I have come to the conclusion if one fails others will not be far behind.
The reconditioned injectors, you have no way of knowing if the injectors you are getting came from a set that had coil failures. So the injectors you get may be on the verge of coil failure.
The companies that sell them warrenty them for quite a long time, but replacing injectors is no fun. I would just purchase new injectors and at least have a chance of no failure.

Glenn
:w
 
my friend bought some new FMS 24lb'er injectors for his from ebay. These were new not reconditioned anyways he bought them for I believe 225.00 and his car runs very good with them.
 
fuel injector failure

tonylong said:
I'm curious about the causes of injector failure and what "reconditioning" can accomplish. If the resistance drops does this mean the insulation in the power coils has been eroded away? - thereby causing shorts, and dropping resistance. If so - will any "reconditioning" fix this problem?
If the resistance is decent across all injectors - but the orifice is plugged due to (what?) then can cleaners be useful? , and how long will any fix last? I'm facing likely injector problems with my 89, I don't mind going the recondition route of it's worthwhile, but I don't want to throw away the cost of 6-8 labor hours on a useless part. Getting new parts is safer, but way more costly.
Click to expand...

If the resistance begins to drop, that is an indication that the coil may be going bad. There is no way to recondition an injector with a bad coil, it would need to be replaced. If the orifice is plugged, it is usually from carbon build up or "dirty" fuel. An injector cleaner will clean the inside of the injector but will not take care of the carbon buildup at the tip. You can have your injectors professionally cleaned. We check flow rate, spray pattern, leak test, check resistance/ohm...you will receive a before and after flow sheet.
www.southbayfuelinjectors.com
 
I personally don't see why you would gamble on reconditioned injectors. yes they are cheaper but in all senses they are still used and in reality have a lot of miles on them and are still prone to failure. Being for the most part injectors are a pain to change why in the end would you want to save yourself a couple hundred bucks at the very most verses having to do the job again when the reconditioned injectors coil fails anyways. The going rate of labor at what 70hr can add up way quiker then the expense of just buying new injectors.
 
I guess it is a matter of preference. It is the most economical solution for alot of people. One to 2% of new and reconditioned injectors go bad from electrical failure. Out of the thousands of injectors that we have cleaned, less than 1% to date have failed. We provide a 3 year warrantee on all of our products and services. In the event that one goes bad we will replace it free of charge.
 
I still don't have a clear picture of what would cause the coil to fail. If the resistance decreases this indicates the some coils are shorting to adjacent coils. Has anyone any info on coil failure?
 
coil failure

tonylong said:
I still don't have a clear picture of what would cause the coil to fail. If the resistance decreases this indicates the some coils are shorting to adjacent coils. Has anyone any info on coil failure?
Click to expand...

Hope this helps: Coil failure

injector coil windings overheat from cooling system failure or ignition failure, with windings losing their magnetic performance; open (broken) windings; shorted (grounded) windings; seized pintle from internal injector corrosion (engine has set too long without running causing the injector to rust internally, petrol contamination with water, or cycling of injector without fuel flow to act as cooling agent and lubricant).

The multec injectors are notorious for coil failure.
 
southbay said:
Hope this helps: Coil failure

injector coil windings overheat from cooling system failure or ignition failure, with windings losing their magnetic performance; open (broken) windings; shorted (grounded) windings; seized pintle from internal injector corrosion (engine has set too long without running causing the injector to rust internally, petrol contamination with water, or cycling of injector without fuel flow to act as cooling agent and lubricant).

The multec injectors are notorious for coil failure.
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Thanks. This is what I was searching for. Looks like failure has a multitude of sources, I guess that's to be expected. With crappy fuel now, and crappier even more likely in the future, I'm thinking about buying an older Vette or Jag with carburetors, less tech means less headaches.
 
There is another significant reason for pre 1992 injectors failing...ethanol. The injectors from the the pre 1992 engines can not withstand the new fuel formulas in that the ethanol breaks down the solenoid coil>>>

"A second problem is a large number of '90 - '92 LT5's have a problem with shorted solenoid coils. This is caused by fuel that contains ethanol. The ethanol leaks past a seal inside the injector. The solenoid coil is damaged by the fuel contamination. When the '90 - '92 injectors were designed it was not known that ethanol would be a component of the fuel. Unfortunately, ethanol became widely used as a fuel additive in about 1995."

Another point is that in many states pump gas is sold as "10% ethanol", BUT in a testing of gasoline up here in Northern Virginia some station were at 18% to a high of 38% ethanol.

I just replaced all (16) injectors on my ZR-1 due to being the LT5 engine is MY90... new injectors are ethanol tolerant and the motor just purrs like a kitten. I highly recommend the Fuel Injector Connection as a source of correct injectors.
Michael
 
FIC seems like a good contact, thanks.
If I just buy new Bosch Des III from any source, will they be ethanol resistant?
 
I wouldn't have a problem with reconditioned injectors if they are tested properly. OTOH, if you get something from Billy Bob's Small Engine service whose shop is his garage and he "specializes" in other things, well.......

Another highly regarded person is John at Fuel Injector Connection
 
fuel injector failure

aklim said:
I wouldn't have a problem with reconditioned injectors if they are tested properly. OTOH, if you get something from Billy Bob's Small Engine service whose shop is his garage and he "specializes" in other things, well.......

Another highly regarded person is John at Fuel Injector Connection
Click to expand...

We stand by our product 100%. We provide a 5 year warrantee on all of our products and services. No complaints yet.

southbayfuelinjectors.com
 
southbay said:
We stand by our product 100%. We provide a 5 year warrantee on all of our products and services. No complaints yet.

southbayfuelinjectors.com
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Sorry. Didn't mean to Dis you. Just thought I'd show him that reconditioned injectors are not something that is a fly by night thing and that there are other good companies out there. I'm sure you will admit having heard many reasons why I can buy something in a can that will fix my injector issues without having to send it to companies like yours for fixing.
 
fuel injector failure

aklim said:
Sorry. Didn't mean to Dis you. Just thought I'd show him that reconditioned injectors are not something that is a fly by night thing and that there are other good companies out there. I'm sure you will admit having heard many reasons why I can buy something in a can that will fix my injector issues without having to send it to companies like yours for fixing.
Click to expand...

No apology necessary, I actually agree with you. There are many reputable companies out there. I am just not quite sure I agree with fixing all injector problems with something that you can buy in a can, that's why companies like ours, FIC, Witchunter, RC, etc, are out there. :)
 
southbay said:
No apology necessary, I actually agree with you. There are many reputable companies out there. I am just not quite sure I agree with fixing all injector problems with something that you can buy in a can, that's why companies like ours, FIC, Witchunter, RC, etc, are out there. :)
Click to expand...

Speaking of which, many of our cars are not driven year round. So, fuel does sit in the injectors for longer periods of time as opposed to a daily driver. Do you think cars like ours need more REAL injector cleaning? Not the snake oil in a can but real cleaning on a bench? When you don't run fuel thru them on a daily basis, does more varnishing take place when the fuel can sit in one spot for days or weeks?

Personally, whenever there is an suspected injector problem, I advise people to take the injectors out an have them checked and balanced. On my diesels, I do them as PM every 100K. Not sure if what to do about injectors for gas injectors that sit like ours do sometimes.
 
injectors are self cleaning anyways. my 97 camaro has its original injectors at 160k and doesn't skip a beat.
 
topless82vette said:
injectors are self cleaning anyways. my 97 camaro has its original injectors at 160k and doesn't skip a beat.
Click to expand...

I have some gas and diesel injectors that would beg to differ. None of them skipped a beat either or so it seemed. Problem with injector issues is that they creep up on you very slowly in insidiously. I use the Wife-O-Meter a lot since she has no clue about what I a doing and it takes away a lot of the Placebo effect. Kinda like the guy feels that his car now has 50HP more because he spent $300 on the Hyperjunk chip. When I had her diesel injectors cleaned, she didn't think there was any issue with the engine. It was running as good as can be. Well, 5 injectors were fine. One of them had poor spray pattern because of some build up and lower pop off pressure too. When it was cleaned, the pop off pressure came back and the spray pattern improved. A bit later, she told me that the car actually felt a little better and we found 1-2 mpg difference.

I cannot check that with my gas injectors since the car is rough anyways. However, I have seen RC Engineering check my injectors when I dropped them off. Car didn't seem any worse for wear but I could see that an injector or two didn't spray as good as the rest.

In conclusion, while I don't have any interest, financial or otherwise, in RC, FIC or Southbay, I can certainly say that if done right, a clean, balanced set of injectors will be better than a varnished, unbalanced set will be.
 
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