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Fuel in exhaust

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Old Sep 18, 2022 | 04:07 PM
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Fuel in exhaust

Some quick background, my car has sat for a long period and had some rodent damage. Have drained the tank, replaced the fuel pump, fuel filter, oil filer and oil, ECU, starter, got the injectors freed up and working, new plugs, coolant, and I'm sure other stuff that I've forgotten. The car ran beautifully on ether before we got the injectors working. Now they are working and the car is all back together. It started briefly, then we shut it off. Subsequent attempts (many) will have it almost catch, but not quite. After the last attempt I saw a leak in the right rear which appeared to be coming from the muffler. I jacked the car up from the back and it indeed was coming from the muffler with a pretty constant drip. Once the car was up for a bit it stopped, but I noticed there was now a drip from the front. Looked there and it appears to be leaking out of the exhaust manifold at the gasket. So I jacked up the right side of the car and began unbolting the exhaust. I got the 2 bolts off holding the back section in place in front of the rear end and fuel started coming out. I put a pan under it and caught probably close to a 1/2 quart - full quart of fuel. Wondering if it's possible rodents got into the exhaust and maybe the cat is clogged, or do you think the injectors are just dumping too much fuel and it's all getting blown out the exhaust? Gotta say this is super weird, never heard of this before. I feel like we're super close to having this running, but maybe not.
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Old Sep 18, 2022 | 04:53 PM
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If there's liquid fuel in the exhaust, you likely have an injector stuck on all the time. Injectors could be mechanically stuck, or the rubber o-rings could have failed, or a wiring harness problem could result in an injector always energized. The first thing I would do is pull the fuel pump fuse to disable the fuel pump so there isn't an uncontrolled amount of fuel going into the engine. Then I might crank the engine for a few seconds with the spark plugs removed in order to get the fuel out of the combustion chamber. Unplug the ignitor so the ignition coils can't fire and ignite the fuel vapor you'll be spraying into the engine bay. With luck, this will show you which rotor has too much fuel in it, and how much fuel, and then you can proceed from there.
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Old Sep 18, 2022 | 06:45 PM
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Either injector stuck full on or the injector O-rings are bad or damaged. The injector body is surrounded with pressurized fuel, if the bottom O-ring is bad it could force a lot of pressurized fuel straight into the engine and then out into the exhaust.

You're going to have to go back into the injectors. Get both fuel rails loose but still hooked up and run the fuel pump and look for leaks. Fix the leak, test again, then assemble and move forward.

Dale
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Old Sep 19, 2022 | 05:30 AM
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If confident I didn’t have fuel leaking ON the engine, I might try changing the oil, do a de-flood, put some decent fuel injector cleaner in the tank… maybe at double strength, and then see if I could pull-start it. If it started I’d just let it run attended while varying rpm for a good long while and see if it improves.

Last edited by Sgtblue; Sep 19, 2022 at 03:42 PM.
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Old Sep 19, 2022 | 10:34 AM
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Edit

Last edited by Sgtblue; Sep 19, 2022 at 10:37 AM.
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Old Oct 11, 2022 | 07:36 AM
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Fuel In Exhaust - Update

Finally got an hour to take a quick look at this. Decided to try to remove the fuel pump relay to see if it would start without the flooding and it started right up and ran beautifully for 10 sec or so before dying. Tried it again with the relay still out but using the gas pedal. Was able to start and run including revving up when I pressed the pedal (still wouldn't idle on it's own unless I used the pedal). Ran it for a good 30 sec like that. I honestly wasn't expecting that to work. Seems like if it was an injector issue, that wouldn't have worked. There were some wiring issues with brittle wires etc when it was being put back together, so I'm wondering if it's possible some wires could be crossed or something along those lines. I'd think with the relay pulled it wouldn't run at all once the excess fuel cleared out.
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Old Oct 11, 2022 | 07:57 PM
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1. This isn't facebook or reddit, please reply to bump your original post so people can see the context.
2. Exactly which relay did you remove?
3. Did you listen to hear if the fuel pump was running after removing that relay? Or feel the fuel lines to check if fuel might be running through them?
4. Do you have a plant to identify and fix wiring problems?
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Old Oct 12, 2022 | 07:12 AM
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1) Sorry haven't been on here long, should I copy my post here and your reply in the other thread?
2) In the very front of the car under the hood, there's a series of relays. I removed the one labeled "Fuel Pump"
3) Didn't really hear anything over the car noise, and can't really get out of the car to feel fuel lines as it won't idle.
4) It was gone through once when the intake was put back together, no current plan, that's why I posted here.
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Old Oct 12, 2022 | 12:35 PM
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@krid23 I merged your threads

1. This isn't facebook or reddit, please reply to bump your original post so people can see the context.
​​​​​​​Definitely this all day long
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