So I'm driving around this weekend and I start to notice that there's a pretty strong fuel odor inside the car whenever I'm at a stoplight. The smell lessens as the car starts moving to the point where I can't smell the fuel anymore at freeway speeds.

The strange part is that the smell only occurs for about 20-30 minutes after starting the car, if I drive around long enough, the fuel smell seems to go away.

The search results seem to point to either the FPD or the Charcoal Canister. I haven't found any explanation on why the fuel odor seems to go away after a long enough drive.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

Same thing happen to me. The problem was a leaky fuel injector and a bad FPD.

 

Get a fire extinguisher and fix the problem ASAP. FD's are famous for spontanious combustion.

 

search for fuel smell or fire or burnt to the ground. that should light a fire under your *** to get this fixed quick. if not for the car's sake then for you own personal safety.

go to the regional forums and find a rotary specialist near you to fix the problem unless you are very mechanically inclined. fixing the FPD or injectors require removing all the vacuum stuff and if you aren't careful with that you will have boost issues - in other words don't even think of taking it to a dealer.

 

I had almost the same exact problem, when driving down the freeway etc... the smell went away, but in traffic/idling it was very strong. It turned out being a leaky primary injector, but I replaced the FPD, and fuel lines along with getting 2 new primaries, and getting the o-rings on the secondaries replaced/cleaned by RC-Engineering. Good time to do a vacuum hose job too

 

Thanks for the replies.

Could it have been the gas cap? I remember reading somewhere that an incorrectly tightened gas cap could cause something similar to happen, so this morning I unscrewed the gas cap and and then screwed it on again. I then drove the car to have the fuel thing looked at at the dealership (I know, but I'm hopeless as a mechanic) and never smelled a wiff of fuel during the 30 minute drive.

 

check your Pulsation Dampers

 

Forsaken,

How much did that set you back?

 

fuel....pulsation...dampener (FPD)

 

totally opposite problem for me
mine smells real bad at starting idle.
then when the car warms up..it goes away

 

see post above you.

Fuel pools on top of block after cooldown, then evaporates as engine starts and heats up. Get enough of a pool that doesn't evaporate by warmup or is sill dripping on things and.....WOOOOSH!

 

While replacing my FPD I noticed another fuel leak from a split fuel hose so look carefully and replace anything that looks less than perfect. Its such a pain to get to the rail you may as well take all the advice above a do it all.

 

Please read and never do this again

 

The whole project? Well a price breakdown:

New FPD: $110 from Ray at Malloy
New fuel lines: 70$ from Ray
New Turbo coolant lines: I want to say $24 for both, but not too sure, from Ray ( <3 him)
2 New Primaries & Injector block (used from 4 sale boards here): $100 or something like that
Cleaning @ RC-Engineering: $28 per injector (awsome to work with too)
New Silicone vac lines: ~$120
Labor: free, I did it all myself (not bad considering I started a week after I bought the car)

It took me quite a long time to do it all, considering I miss-diagnosed the problem. I originally thought it was the FPD, and so got that along with the fuel lines and vac hoses and did all the replacements and put it back together. No fuel smell for a couple days, then it returned.

At that point, I took everything apart, pulled the fuel injector blocks out of the motor, and jumpered the fuel pump, so it presurized the system. Thats when I noticed the fuel coming out of the top of the front primary injector. From there I bought the whole thing from a guy here on the forums and after that, no fuel smell