Hanaldo

Yeh when you install it you should hold the new pump next to the old pump in the cradle and try to get it to sit in exactly the same place with the strainer in the same place. I am using the little short sock, but I don't have any problems with fuel pick up. I don't know how much that has to do with your starting issues though. If your pump isn't sitting in the fuel then your car isn't going to start no matter how many times you crank it. Try pulling the entry hose (the one coming from the fuel filter) to the rail off and priming the pump for a quick second. If any fuel comes out then you know that the starting issue isn't because of the fuel pump not sitting in the fuel.

Bah, I've learned to take it with a pinch of salt. The car isn't my daily anymore so I am fairly flexible on time. It does get frustrating at times, especially when I end up wasting a lot of money, but a tiny masochistic part of me thinks I'll miss the puzzle once it's solved

Just want to correct myself here and apologise if I mislead anyone. I re-read Paul's write up and realised he was using a different method to the one I used. My bad. So in this case, YES set the dial gauge for the valve lift indicated on the cam card.

Yep. I was able to drop the pressure back down to 43.

Well that was a big waste of time. Rechecked my cam timing using my tuners method of measuring cam duration at 50 thou valve lift, then finding the centreline. This is a very repeatable method so easy to check for errors. But with this method, I got 121.5° on the inlet cam and 116.5° on the exhaust cam. They are supposed to be 120 and 115, so they were a tiny bit out but nothing that explains the problem. Poor tuner sat on the phone with me late last night and early this morning going over things, he just had to drop off his kids at school now and I'm expecting a call back from him shortly. Absolutely mammoth effort from him to make sure I am doing things correctly, so now we are at least both confident that the cam timing is not the issue and we can go from here. Leaves us both very confused about where the missing power and lag is.

Haha nice! Its definitely a good spot, nice and easy! What did you do about the jet pump on the fuel lid? From what I understand, thus acts as a venturi for getting fuel from the tank on the other side of the hump to the pump side. That's why I didn't do the return fitting at the same time.

Yes I've seen it, but that's not a true flex setup. It has been manually set up at each ethanol percentage increment, which is hugely expensive in dyno time. It was an be done, but it's not affordable. Would be cheaper and easier to but the Haltech and set that up.

Well, scratch that. Off to pick up the car now, but not for the reason I had hoped... Tuner called me at about 6:30 this morning to inform me that after spending an hour on the phone with Link, he has worked out that the Link actually doesn't support a true flex fuel setup. They only support the ethanol sensor as an input for a 4th axis, so you can do your fuel and timing maps with ethanol percentage as a correction. But that means to do a flex fuel setup, you would need to tune the fuel and timing maps at 5% increments from 0% E85 to 100% E85. Which would be hugely expensive to do. But then there is also no correction on the Link for cold start enrichment, etc. You can only have the settings for one fuel there. Link's solution is to set those things up half way between each fuel, but really that just makes the car hard to start on all fuels. So even if you did tune the car at 5% increments all through the range, it still wouldn't be a true flex fuel setup because the other settings don't have corrections for ethanol %. So the car will still go ahead on E85, but it won't be flex fuel. It will be tuned for between 60%-90% ethanol to allow for the variation in the pump fuel, but I can still only run E85. If I want to use unleaded fuel again then I'll have to purge the tank and upload the current tune. So I essentially have a very expensive, little bit fancier, Power FC. Fkn awesome. Anyway, after deciding what to do there, my tuner discussed with me what to do about the low power and lag. He is 99% sure that the cam timing is still out. So I am off to pick the car up now to re-check the cam timing. All in all, not the news I wanted to be getting about the car today. More money ill-spent.

Mat (34GeeTeeTee) is.

Just spent 25 minutes on the phone with Danny discussing my setup before he does the flex fuel tune. Wanted to know everything and anything, from how I wired the flex fuel sensor and pinned it to the ECU, to how I setup my cams, to what cat is on it. It's this phoning me and asking me questions and talking to me that gives me so much confidence in taking my car to him, no other place I've been has ever asked anything about the car other than what ECU it has. He even asked me to send him a copy of the dyno sheet from my last tune so he can overlay it with other cars using the same turbo as me, to see if he can spot anything wrong. So it's so far so good. He said he is starting the car now, so will keep me updated via text messages on what he is doing and how the car is going.

Anything from the idle control valve to an air leak to incorrect valve lash. Impossible to say based on the info you have given. Best to start with trying to adjust the ICV, then go from there.

Well, serviced the car last night and it drove perfectly to the tuners this morning. Fingers crossed it all goes ok, plan is for the tuner to have a look at it, see what I've done and then give me a call to let me know how it goes ahead from there. With any luck it will be done tomorrow, though I know better than that to bank on it. As for goals, ill be happy if it drives well and makes it back over 350rwhp. Not expecting more than that.

You can bolt the turbo on without a tune no worries, so long as you drive sedately until it is tuned. Off boost it won't make a difference.

I don't think that will be doing anything, but I'm not totally sure how these controllers work. I would think that an earth is an earth, so splicing into that wire and earthing it again wouldn't do anything in my mind.

Also, the buzzing you speak of is the pump motor. Some pumps are louder than others, but you should definitely be able to hear it prime. Not sure what pump you have, some can't really be heard when the car is running (also depends how loud your exhaust is). Basically the pump spins faster with higher voltage, so the buzzing gets louder.

Use a multimeter to check. Splicing will likely work, but better to give it a solid earth. Just run a wire to the chassis somewhere. Well what you're doing is priming the fuel pump. When you turn the engine off, the fuel all drains back into the tank. When you turn the key to ON, the fuel pump primes for 3 seconds which restores pressure. BUT, I don't think this is gonna be your issue. Personally I think you should always prime the pump before cranking, but it isn't totally necessary. Fuel pressure will build, even if you don't prime the pump. I think you should re-earth your pump. I have never understood why people think things need to be connected to the negative terminal on the battery. The battery is earthed to the chassis, therefore the whole chassis is earthed. The shorter the earth cable, the better. Running a cable all the way back to the engine bay from the boot is just asking for trouble. Its necessary for power, it isn't for earth. Re-earth the pump to the chassis closer to the pump and see if that helps.

Yeh I've got Speedflow firesleeve on mine. Works a treat.

Is it painted? Try taking it back to bare metal with a wire brush if that's where you want it. Or use a multimeter to find a better earth. What about the fuel pump, where have you earthed that? You said at the battery? Is your battery in the boot? What size cable are you using?

Yeh all my lines are braided. From memory the block thread is M14x1.5. Speedflow make a banjo fitting that works, but don't use it. Banjo fittings can suck it. Better to use a M14x1.5 to -6 straight adapter and then whatever fittings you need from there.

It's gotta be a dodgy earth mate. Where have you earthed everything?

Nah, just working by phone light haha.

Haha Yeh I had that problem too. I extended the wires by 5cm or so and mounted the relay on the back of the seat. Saves the relay getting bashed around by bumps in the road etc.

*sigh* Thought it would be a good idea to pull off all the vacuum hoses from underneath the plenum and put hose clamps on them. Farkin, can't get them back on the barbs. Will need to pull the fuel reg out to give myself more room (for my gorilla forearms, because yes Mani, I lift occasionally ). Can't be farked tonight, will do it sometime before Wednesday. The clamps won't even go on anyway, the hose tails are too close together on the plenum. #awesomewasteoftime

I would suggest wiggling all the wires and connections around with the car running though. You may have a dodgy connection somewhere. Best to just double check before it dies on you while driving.

Ha! Cars No worries mate, glad it's working for ya! Enjoy