Fuel pump doesn't stop priming, low pressure.

[itsbudda]

I just bought a 1989 Daytona Shelby from a guy in the Baltimore area, 2.2 cb, 555 Mechanically restored proper bumber to bumper (rebuilt engine, tranny, new suspension, steering), but stage 5 with meth injection, all sorts of other go fast goodies, with a billet fuel rail, and fpr with a convenient pressure gauge on it. Extremely convenient, because 200 miles into my 540 mile return trip in the car, it died in Grantsville, MD.

Once you turn the key on, it primes and keeps on priming, stopping only if you turn the key off. It only primes to about 40 or so pounds, then drops to 20ish while cranking. Pressure holds when the key's off so definitely not leaking.

Before dying, the car drove mostly fine and started right up, but would fall flat on it's face if you do any more than about 1/3-1/2 throttle.

Given the symptoms I'm almost completely sure it's the pump or filter. I had nowhere to stay, and didn't have the luxury of ordering parts and waiting 2 weeks, so we towed the car to a local shop and returned back to Cincinnati, took the walbro off my totaled spirit and got a new fuel filter. I also grabbed a spare Fuel rail and FPR. I'm fairly certain the car should survive the drive after this is fixed, but grabbed a spare SBEC, Map, TPS, turbovan injectors, and some relays anyway.

I'm about to make the 340 mile return trip to Grantsville to rescue the car, and hopefully drive it home. Is there anything else I should try to obtain, or would that about cover it?

[tryingbe]

Get 5/16 inch fuel injection hose that is rated for the in tank use. 30R10, NAPA sells them.

Also, your 91 fuel pump is different than a 89 fuel pump, it will probably require modification.

89 uses SMEC, your SBEC is useless.

[itsbudda]

Already have the fuel line, and I believe the one in the spirit was the 89 and older pump. The car's harness was spliced to fit.

[NAJ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by itsbudda Once you turn the key on, it primes and keeps on priming, stopping only if you turn the key off. It only primes to about 40 or so pounds, then drops to 20ish while cranking. Pressure holds when the key's off so definitely not leaking.

Although you may have a fuel issue that does not explain why the pump continues to run which would be an electrical issue.
The ASD relay powers the fuel pump, + coil, injectors, HO2S.
The controller controls the ground side of the relay.

Is the DB/YL wire shorted to ground?
Were 12 volts present at the fuel pump?
(Lower voltage will cause the pump to run slower causing lower pressure.)
What is the voltage at the ASD output with the key on?
(If 0 you have a short to voltage in the fuel pump circuit.)
Do you have 12 volts at the ASD output cranking?

[itsbudda]

I wasn't prepared to check any of that. The fuel line is all rust and randomly started spraying today, so I said screw it and the shop's gonna take a crack at it.

[NAJ]

If you (or they) need any more info/help please post back.
If the problem gets corrected please post that also.

[itsbudda]

The car should be arriving home later today. It has shiny new fuel lines, but still doesn't run. I knew before buying it that the pump was rewired with 10 gauge wire, but in my severe lack of sleep on the day of, didn't inquire how. I don't recommend trying to inspect a vehicle for purchase after not sleeping for 2-3 days lol. You tend to miss details. I found out from the previous owner, that the way the pump fuel pump was rewired bypasses everything, so simply if the key's on, the pump's on. Which will totally wear out a pump if you stall all the time (like i did test driving it (the TU 6 puck ceramic clutch is crazy.) Given the car's recent problems of cutting out at 3k at half throttle or above, sounds like it's been on the way out for a while.

The orange wire with the fuse is the fuel pump. Looking back I don't know why I didn't ask about it. I guess i just thought it was a fusible link or something, but they're never hooked directly to the battery lol. Shit. But look at that engine bay and tell me you wouldn't trust the workmanship lol. Even the meth injection looks factory. If it's working, I'll probably just leave that as is. It's not like I'll do a better job.


As soon as it gets home, if it gets 12 volts at the pump, i'm gonna plop my old walbro from my spirit in it and see if it fires. The guy that did all the wiring is a Cincinnati local (kinda a coincidence the car ended up in Maryland and I brought it back.) I'll see if I can get ahold of him and pick his brain about it.

[itsbudda]

The car arrived, and apparently the shop swapped the pumps when they did the fuel lines, and the known good spirit pump is the one in the car and still no start, so that's out. Haven't gone under to check voltage yet because snow, but I also saw the boost/vac gauge hangs out at zero while cranking, so now i'm more perplexed about this.

All the vac lines and the vacuum block look intact, and I just rechecked timing and it's legit. I'm starting to be paranoid that I may have snapped another camshaft, because when it turns over it sounds like it jumped timing, but that doesn't explain the fuel pressure so f*** me i don't know. I'm just a hack that bought a car out of his league.

[NAJ]

Originally your issue was that the pump would not turn off.
Is that still a problem?

CHECKING NO STARTS

CAM TIMING
http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f4/...n-84-95-a.html


NO START/NO SPARK
http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f4/...k-84-90-a.html


FUEL PRESSURE
http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f4/...-93-turbo.html


CHECKING MAP SENSOR
http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f4/...agnostics.html

[phantomrt]

The car looks pretty nice under the hood--I'd agree that time and detail was put into it which is the most important thing to have when building a car. Having the pump run all the time the key is on is a slight hack way of doing it, but it won't wear out the pump even if it keeps running with the engine stalled. And every engine I've ever had a vacuum gauge hooked up to hangs out at zero while cranking, although it should flutter slightly, so I'd consider that normal.

There are so many possibilities here as to why this is happening. Will it run on starting fluid? Is there any spark? Are the injectors firing? It looks like it is going to have an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator, and is that hooked up right or perhaps go out of adjustment? Is the distributor spinning when cranking? For all we know, the pickup sensor decided to die.
With just patience and perseverance, the car is not over your head.

[phantomrt]

I looked at the picture again, and the FIRST thing that I do not like is where the vacuum manifold is mounted, especially if it has silicone vacuum lines hooked up to it. The reason for it is that the exhaust heat will eventually kick the crap out of the vacuum lines that are there, and I doubt that rubber lines will be totally immune to the radiant exhaust heat. I'd move it or heat shield it or something to that nature.

[phantomrt]

...and along that same subject line, it is possible that I just can't see it, but the firewall heat shield seems to be missing as well. I feel that it is important to have. Surely, a bunch of people may say that they haven't had it there in years with no problems, but I do not like to play that game.

Make sure the starter has a heat shield on it, too. And that coil wire appears to be a little tight. Maybe its not a problem, but again, I don't like to play that game.

And now I just noticed that the timing belt is not broken. I noticed that because.... are there ANY timing belt covers installed? If someone is too lazy to re-install parts such as these, it makes a person wonder what else they skimped on. Any time that I go buy a car and the timing belt cover(s) are missing, the deal is off, or at least the price just went way down. Unless it is strictly a drag race car, these covers really should be in place. In my experience, having timing belt covers installed and all splash shields in place indicates a much higher quality car than those that don't have such devices in place. Or is there a chance that the lower cover is there (picture is a bit fuzzy) and you removed the top one just to see if the belt was still working?

[itsbudda]

No there's no covers, nor inner fender wells. I don't think I've seen a car for sale on TD or T-M with them in place still in a very long time. It's right up there with homemade AC Delete lol. The car was built by Mario03SRT and Reeves a few years ago as a garaged, mostly drag car/occasional driver, hence the hardwired fuel pump and lack of timing covers and inner fender well, and had a few other bits of laziness you'd never want on a daily driver I was planning to fix. I figured I could trust the build quality, and still do. I saw this car in 2008 at turbopalooza running 12s, figured 5 years later it's still running and made it all the way to Maryland, can't be that bad of a build. I was hoping put it a little closer to stock and drive it somewhat daily, but that's if I can ever figure out why it doesn't run.

[itsbudda]

Well, no surprise, the problem is in the homemade fuel pump wiring. You turn the key on, it pumps, try to start the car, it turns off.

[phantomrt]

If it is a drag car where things are constantly being torn apart and adjustments being made, and it lives life 1/4 mile at a time, then it is not a big deal and it makes perfect sense to leave all that stuff out. But if you want something that you can actually drive and enjoy, that stuff has to go back on. Some people think that a 1:1 ratio of hours of maintenance to hours of operation is acceptable, but that's a game that I feel gets annoying to play. Although it is often necessary for any kind of competitive racing.

The upper timing covers on these cars are held on by three fasteners, none of which are particularly difficult to get to yet people never bother to put them back on. It takes two minutes to install them. It is the same people who repair wiring by twisting wires together, taping them, and calling it good. There's no need for solder and heat shrink tubing. You don't need it. Why use it? It takes extra time to do that. All I am saying is that quality comes with perseverance and attention to detail. I see lack of it with my customers' cars all the time and they are the ones who have problems. The latest was a '95 Acclaim which had an engine transplant done because of a broken timing belt. (yes, you're thinking the same that I am) They must've installed an engine from a 1987-1989 because it didn't have the proper crank pulley on it, so the belt was too wide for it and they just ran it that way until the belt shredded. Oh, the 3spd transmission was also missing its kickdown linkage, and both the alternator and power steering brackets were missing some supports. Even if the engine really did need to be swapped, these are items that are very simple to interchange from one to the other, but I guess it was an extra 25 minutes of boozing and smoking that they could be enjoying. Crap is missing, car has problems.

Before that was a '98 Civic with timing belt covers missing. The thing that stopped that car was the fact that last one to work on it never felt it necessary to figure out how to tighten the crankshaft pulley bolt. They were able to figure out how to remove it, but apparently didn't worry about getting it tight. And its mighty cold air intake was.... not held in place by much of anything and the filter was right down where water would love to get to it. Cold air intakes down there don't make much sense anyway--sun plus asphalt makes a lot of heat. Lets suck in the air that is barely above the 170+ degree asphalt that is lurking with puddles when the sun isn't shining. Crap missing, car has problems.

Then there was the 3G? DSM that was missing something behind the engine where the equal length intermediate shaft bolted to the engine. It was a bunch of years ago, so I can't remember what it was. Basically, the part was supposed to be sandwiched between the intermediate shaft support bracket and the engine. Someone never put that part back on, so the intermediate shaft bracket wasn't spaced out from the engine like it should've been by about 3/8". Yes, the intermediate shaft stub was no longer perfectly perpendicular to the differential anymore. How nothing got damaged is a bit of a mystery to me, but it definitely didn't take me much time from being underneath the car to realize that something wasn't right. Crap missing... at least a potential problem.