She's breathing

[BigD]

Tried starting my S52 swap for the first time today. It didn't fire but it cranked and that sure felt good - at least means that some very annoying wiring is correct. It cranked very slowly so the battery is definitely dead. Put it on the charger just now, it's deep in the red. The fuel gauge also read empty but that could just be my wiring screw up somehow... doubt it though so I'm gonna bring a jug of fuel too. BTW, do these things have a min RPM they need to spin before they fire? I'll find out tomorrow but it kinda worried me that it didn't even sputter - but it was turning over quite slowly and again I think it's out of fuel. I'm 99% sure the fuel lines are right - rear mani to rear rail, front mani to middle rail.

Gonna have a vid up of the first attempt a bit later tonight... and hopefully a video of it firing tomorrow. I can just imagine how loud it's gonna be, during cranking you can hear the compression out of the headers: blub blub blub.

Biting nails...

[PiercedE30]

Congratulations. At least you are at a point where you can start it up.

[Tracymcgradyownz]

nice, btw, just wondering, did u do the obd1 conversion on the s52?

[BigD]

nice, btw, just wondering, did u do the obd1 conversion on the s52?

Yup. It doesn't even feel like a "conversion". That's more applicable to someone who already has the S52 in his car as the original engine and needs to convert for whatever reason. I was going to get all new sensors regardless so it was just a question of getting one vs the other. In fact the only oddity about the whole process is to get a 10 dollar wiring extension for the vanos solenoid, oil pan plugs for the exhaust manifolds annnnd.... oh yeah I've gotta go get a little hose to adapt the PCV valve to the valve cover (all trivial).

[BigD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbTQmaYwQsk

Hopefully better results tomorrow...

[BigD]

Alrighty... so still no fire but much closer to the truth as they say. My fuel gauge wasn't full of crap, I brought 20L of fuel and it now reads like 1/4 tank as it should. The engine now cranks properly. But my injectors freaking leak!!! More on this below but first some more info.

So I've narrowed it down to no fire. While fudging with the spewing injectors I of course confirmed that there's tons of fuel pressure - so the lines and pump are good. I pulled the spark plugs and they are wet, so my injectors are firing. But my spark plugs are finger tight, if that. I remembered that since I was going to replace every sensor and wear item in the engine, I just looked at the plugs to see how the engine's life has been but I only put them back in superficially - and I never got around to replacing them. So I don't know if this was causing it to not fire? I do have an EWS DME but I have an EWS-deleting chip that's correct for this application. Does EWS simply not let the ignition go or.. oh no wait it just makes the injectors stay put right? Which mine don't so...

Now for the more worrying problem... with the tank having fuel, after cranking the engine, I would hear this psssssssssssssssssss out of the top of the engine. I first thought it was just compression seep out of the exhaust after a piston is stopped in a compression stroke. Then my wife said it's coming from the top... I ran to yank the battery right away.

I looked and the front-most injector was spewing a nice solid stream of fuel, like a hair line stream of fuel. I dunno what the fuck... pressing the fuel rail down doesn't help. Moving the injector made it either spew more or less. I noticed that the spring clip wasn't on quite like the rest, I took it off and back on and next time it didn't spew but now #3 was... I fiddled with the clips, everything seems ok but in total 3 of them ended up barfing fuel, at separate times.

The only thing I can see is my spring clips may be not on correctly. First pic is of an injector itself - they were rebuilt by a professional injector shop (new seals and shit), maybe the ring is too small? should it take up the entire length of the metal area? The next 2 pics are what it looks like installed - I can push or pull on the fuel rail to make it go in one of the two positions. WHat you see is with the injector installed after removing. It's possible I didn't put them in this way initially, I know I didn't focus on making sure the rubber ring was pulled up, only that the spring clip was in squarely, so maybe the rubber ring wasn't up tightly?? Anyway, any ideas or comments welcome:

EDIT: a friend looked at these and says that the injectors aren't in properly - the clips are supposed to hug the plastic part, not the rubber ring (if that's true no wonder they leaked... :P looking at the pics up close now I can see it's more obvious... feel stupid now but meh, I'll leave it up for you guys to laugh at and for some others to learn)

[Van Westervelt]

whoa, yeah, those were not in there right. you can see the wear marks on the first groove on the injector from the clip

[Van Westervelt]

that rubber o-ring should seat all the way down into the barrel of the fuel rail

[BigD]

whoa, yeah, those were not in there right. you can see the wear marks on the first groove on the injector from the clip

Yeah, looking at the pic it's pretty obvious now

[Van Westervelt]

Glad you can smack yourself about it. lol

[BigD]

Glad you can smack yourself about it. lol

Yeah, I'd be doing a lot worse if I set the damn thing on fire. I'm one of those people that gets frustrated to all shit when a problem is hanging over my head and I have to give up. I wanted to keep fiddling and only my best common sense (ie it's not me and it's female) made me quit - seeing how the rear injector barfed a nice amount of fuel over the starter...

[LINUS]

O-rings look new though - good idea D. A few dollars well spent. It helps when seating to lube the O-ring with Vasaline (insert favorite gay joke), & use a small block of wood & light taps with a hammer. That will take care of it.

Did you also replace the O-ring down on the manifold side?

[BigD]

O-rings look new though - good idea D. A few dollars well spent. It helps when seating to lube the O-ring with Vasaline (insert favorite gay joke), & use a small block of wood & light taps with a hammer. That will take care of it.

Did you also replace the O-ring down on the manifold side?

Yeah, the seals and pintle caps were replaced by an injector shop, and sonic cleaned/matched. Cheaper and as good as buying new...

[mazur]

You have a check engine light before cranking?

[BigD]

You have a check engine light before cranking?

Yeah but that could be any number of non-essential things that aren't hooked up yet. This is just a test fire. For instance, the O2 isn't hooked up, neither is the purge valve.

Fucking work keeps me so busy I'm jonesing to get out there and try again but I can't until the weekend...