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Injector Trials & Wiring Woes
Swapped out injectors and battled wiring mishaps while chasing a stubborn misfire
For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to get my "brand new" injectors to work. I discovered that one injector was stuck open, so I contacted the seller for a replacement. When he said, "Customer pays for shipping," I decided instead to try a different cylinder. It’s odd if only one injector is faulty out of four, so we decided to gamble a little.
Initially, we installed all four injectors, and it turned out that injector number 4 was bad.
| Cylinder | Injector Type |
|---|---|
| 1 | New injector |
| 2 | New injector |
| 3 | New injector |
| 4 | New injector (BAD!) |
To troubleshoot, I replaced it with our original good injector (see my previous post), swapping things around.
| Cylinder | Injector Type |
|---|---|
| 1 | New injector |
| 2 | New injector |
| 3 | Original good injector |
| 4 | New injector |
I may have made another mistake when reinstalling the injectors—I applied dielectric grease in the connectors, a substance electricians use to protect against debris and moisture, thinking it would help prevent salt buildup from our extremely salty roads. However, our electrician friend later advised against it, and we ended up attempting to clean it out. After this, the engine misfires at idle (though it runs fine under load), and I suspect the issue might due to the grease.
After driving the car for a few days—avoiding idling as much as possible—the misfire persisted in one cylinder. So, I removed the manifold again, disassembled each connector, and thoroughly cleaned them with brake cleaner and compressed air. Once everything was clean, we reinstalled all four new injectors, this time placing the bad new injector (number 4) in cylinder 1 to test it.
| Cylinder | Injector Type |
|---|---|
| 1 | New injector (BAD!) |
| 2 | New injector |
| 3 | New injector |
| 4 | New injector |
When cylinder 1 misfired, we confirmed it was indeed the bad injector. I then removed the faulty injector from cylinder 1 and replaced it with the original good injector. Hopefully, this setup will finally stop the misfire.
The current setup is now:
| Cylinder | Injector Type |
|---|---|
| 1 | Original good injector |
| 2 | New injector |
| 3 | New injector |
| 4 | New injector |
As if that wasn’t enough, taking parts on and off five times in a row caused wear, and I accidentally ripped off the cables for the boost pressure sensor connector on the boost pipe. You have to push the pipe down hard to remove it, and I didn’t realize the connector was still attached.
This meant a trip to the scrapyard for used connectors with wires. The only issue now is that the space is super tight and the wires are very short, so I’ll have to splice them together carefully.
Stay tuned for more.