I've looked this up, but cant find any good info relivent to this problem. Perhaps somone could point me in the right direction?

After a good long drive, even the passenger side fo the passenger compartment starts to smell like gas. It is a distinct smell because I run premix and it smells the same.

When I get out of the car and pop the hood, I can definitely smell it strongly, but only on the passenger side of the engine.

Perhaps a bad fuel injector O-ring? I checked the secondaries and they looked fine. I hear that the gas smell does not come from a failed S5 Pulsation Dampner.

Any ideas?

 

My car is a 1990 N/A.

No relivant mods to that area besides an FD fuel pump (Mine went bad and I had one lying around . . . )

I've checked all the fuel lines that I could see and the charcoal canister and all. Didnt find anything wrong.

 

are there any puddles on top of the housings? get a flashlight, fuel seepage at hose connections are not hard to find- and there's not a whole lot of line/ rails to check...

 

Gonna go check again right now.

 

It is probably your fuel pulsation dampner. Mine leaked all over and I could smell the gas strongly in the car to. I would fix it before you start a fire.

 

check your oring seals again... all of them

 

just unbolt the uim and replace what needs to be replaced.

 

Yeh, I'm going to unbolt the UIM.
I gotta pull everything to fix my 6-port actuators anyway.

I searched again and could not find anything at all. The PD is dry as a bone. The UIM and LIM (that I could see) are completely dry.

The fuel smell also seems to have gone away :/

I DID find that my oil ventalation vac line fell off. Think that could have anything to do with it?

 

I'm placing my bets on the primary injector O-rings :O

 

Your charcol canister is on that side of the engine. Your fuel is being vented in that area. I have mine removed and I get that smell out of the hardline that remains over there. I'd check that before digging into the engine to deep.

 

I gotta pull the intake apart anyway. You honestly think its the canester? How do I check that thing?

 

Well if nothing is leaking fuel injectors, PD, fuel filter/lines (on the other side of the car), yeah it's very well possible it's coming from that area. As for checking, I'd just put my nose in the area of the canister and it's lines. I don't personally know if those "wear out" but it's function is to vent gas vapor. So a smell in that area could be possible.

 

it doesn't VENT fuel vapors- it stores them until the next startup, if everything's working right...that's the whole reason behind the system- to NOT allow fuel vapors to escape and pollute our air :0

 

Well mine vents fuel vapors. I don't know much about stock emmisions or really anything stock oreinted for that matter. Just pointing out a possible cause. Thanks for the correction though.

 

Very interesting and informative.

 

well, that's good- if your canister is VENTING the vapors into the atmosphere, that's your fuel smell...now just figure out what's causing it to malfunction...

 

I just went for a 20 minute drive to see if the smell would come back. It did not.

I will be driving for four and a half hours this weekend. Lets see if it comes back then.

 

Might want to jumper the fuel pump connector and watch under the hood for a few seconds to look for a leak somewhere, just to be on the safe side. This will pressurize the system, and if you do have a leak, youll catch it that way, instead of finding out the hard way when it catches fire..

 

I like that idea. Thanks

 

Are you on the original pulsation dampener?

I would really suggest replacing it. I had an engine bay fire tuesday morning, yesterday.

It wasn't fun... You should replace it just for insurance.

 

I have an S5.

The PD is part of the fuel rail. Plus, if it fails, the gas usually remains inside the unit (unlike the S4 unit).

At least thats what I've gleened from the board.

Thank you for the concern.

 

Exhaust leaks burn your eyes and stink of gas...and the exhaust happens to be on the passenger side. IF you have no fuel leaks, I would suspect this. Check for leaks my jumping the yellow check connector on teh strut tower and checking with a good flashlight.

 

Take a fire extinguisher with you.

 

It's clogged. The vent to atmosphere is a fail safe function of the charcoal canister. Same thing would happen if you were to unplug the lines to the canister and leave them dangling, you'd get an unholy fuel smell coming into the cabin in a similar fashion to the canister being clogged. One could always lengthen the hose that the canister vents to a location that wouldn't be pulling air into the cabin .

 

That is incorrect. The S5 PD will leak from the front rubber stopper end if the membrain inside is old or damaged.

S5 Pulstation Dampeners will leak just as easy as a S4 one!

In fact I personally have seen more S5 PD/rails leaking, than S4 ones.