Hello, every once in a while in my 1990 GTU I smell fuel when driving hard. I have asked around and I have learned that this could be caused by a leaky fuel pulsation damper. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Well it was sure the culprit when I started smelling raw fuel. The PD is integrated with sceonday fuel rail and the secondary fuel rail is visible without removing anything. If you look just behind the waterneck , right under upper intake manifold you should be able to see a round object with a little rubber nipple sticking out in the middle, that the PD. When mine went bad I saw a small puddle of fuel right underneath it, fuel had collected right on top of engine(that is the bad part).

 

Both the primary and secondary fuel rails have PDs in them. Primary is not visible.

To check the primary (assuming the secondary check turns up nothing) you would need to pull the UIM, MIM (Middle Intake Manifold.. I'm calling that damn piece that from now on, because no one else has named it really) and look.

Remember that anytime you can smell fuel, you can have an engine fire... so I'd go easy on it until you get it fixed... and be careful of any ignition sources near the car, fumes are the flamable part.

--Gary

 

There is only one pd, the other is an fpr. The fpr has a vacuum hose attached to it.

From bottom to top: lim, uim, dynamic chamber, throttle body.

As far as going easy on it, NO. Park the car and get it fixed.

 

The safest way to find a fuel leak is to pressurize the system with the engine cold and a fire extinguisher handy.

There's a small two prong connector over on the passenger's side of the engine bay, somewhere around the front shock tower (or slightly in front). IIRC it's yellow on the S4s. If you jumper this connection (stick a wire in both ends) with the ignition on, the fuel pump will start pumping, and you'll hear fuel rushing through the fuel lines. You can now sniff around your engine with a reasonably low risk of starting a fire.

In addition to a leaking pulsation damper, you should also check around your charcoal canister (on the back of the shock tower, passenger's side). If the purge valve isn't working properly, the charcoal canister will fill up with fumes and begin dumping the fumes from the gas tank overboard. It's not terribly likely unless you've done something to your emissions control, but it's worth investigating.

I'll echo what was said above. Don't drive it until you determine what's leaking. The pulsation damper has an annoying problem of being more or less right above the exhaust manifold. Gas running down the side of the engine will get ignited from the exhaust, and ruin your day.

You *do* carry a fire extinguisher with you, right?

-=Russ=-

 

check this out, when i smelled fuel (for over 5 months, punch me) i thought it was a PD, so i found the little screw fell out, i put that **** back in, still smelled it, looked, had a dime size hole in that little black rubber fuel line, was dumping like 2 gallons every quarter mile, i knew the FC gas milege didnt suck THAT bad. hahaa, fixed that **** right up.

 

OR - You can just ignore it until....