NSFW's ID 1000 injector swap

Over the weekend I pulled out my stock injectors and fuel rails, and installed an ID1000 side-feed-conversion kit. The approach that I took won't be applicable to most people since my stock fuel rails were unbolted from the underside of the intake manifold back when we did my turbo-and-inlet swap several months ago.

 

Removing and replacing the manifold was a big enough pain in the ass that I didn't want to do it again, so I just unbolted the TGV housings and the manifold to provide some wiggle room, and swapped everything in-place. I'm not sure that actually saved me any time.

 

But anyway... here's what it looked like when I was done:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/FrontViewHigh.jpg

 

The fuel pressure regulator/damper is the black thing next to the brake fluid reservoir - I moved it from the stock location to get more clearance around the FMIC charge pipe (the AVO kit doesn't need it, but the blow-through pipe I'm working on is larger). I ran 5/16th hose from the regulator to the driver's side rail, then teflon/steel hose across the front of the motor to the passenger rail, then 5/16th hose back to the regulator/damper.

 

On the fronts of the rails, I used 6AN ORB (O-ring-boss) fittings, which are connected with steel-braided teflon hose (Earl's Speed-Flex) and 6AN hose ends (Earl's Speed-Seal). On the backs of the rails, Aeroquip 6AN-to-5/16 barb fittings - these don't include o-rings, but o-rings are required to get a good seal against the rails, so I bought some buna-N rings at an auto parts shop. And when I got home, I noticed that the rings I bought were a bit thin, so I doubled them up. I'll go back and fix that later, but by the time I noticed, it was too late... more on that in a minute.

 

You could do the whole job with regular fuel hose and four 6AN-to-5/16th fittings. But I wanted some braided steel bling. And those adapter fittings are almost $20/each from Aeroquip, and I couldn't find a less expensive source, so the braided steel didn't cost much more ($6/foot for the hose, $15/ea for the ends).

 

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/Fittings1.jpg

<== front . . . back ==>

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/Fittings2.jpg

 

And here's why you'll need to pull your intake manifold if you haven't already:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/StockRailMountingTab.jpg

 

If you squint, you'll notice that behind the alternator and under the manifold, there is a mounting tab with a captive nut in the middle. This is normally bolted to the underside of the intake manifold, making it pretty much impossible to access without pulling the manifold off the car. Here's 3/4ths of the factory fuel rail assembly... at the lower-right, you can see where I cut the driver's side off to get each side out separately:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/OldRail1.jpg

 

After cutting the rail to get each side out, there was no turning back. I was swapping injectors or bicycling to work. (I should have put the two hunks of rail together for that photo. Maybe later.)

 

Here's where the driver's side front fitting and hose ended up:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/DriverSideFront.jpg

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/DriverSideFront2.jpg

 

...and here's the driver's side rear - you're looking straight down:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/DriverSideRear1.jpg

 

The passenger side front was a tighter fit. Here it is without the (3") intake tube:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/PassengerSideFront1.jpg

 

And here it is with the intake installed... It's tight, but it fits just right. And for some reason there's a bit of extra rubber shielding on that hose that it's touching. How nice of Subaru to be so thoughtful.

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/PassengerSideFront2.jpg

 

If I was smart I would have taken a picture of the rear fitting on the passenger side before I put the IC piping and head breathers back, so you could maybe actually see it. But I think I'm going to put a 90-degree fitting here when I replace this section of hose with braided line anyway, so until then, this will have to suffice:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/Injectors/PassenerRear.jpg

So how well do they work?

 

Dunno yet, really. I've got a fuel pressure leak somewhere that I want to fix before I do much driving. I can't smell any fuel, but it's hard to believe that the regulator chose the day of the swap to finally crap out. It was not holding pressure very well before the swap, but now I lose all fuel pressure within an hour or two. The doubled-up o-rings are suspect. So are the fittings on the braided steel line.

 

I can say that the new injectors idle smoother than my old injectors did. I used to get misfire counts every 5-10 seconds, and now I get none at all.

I'll probably do that kit if I decide to shoot for E85. Right now I'm more than satisfied with 21 psi on 93 pump and I have plenty of headroom with DW 850s.

 

Even though I left that bolt off when I had the manifold off, I'd probably have to remove the intake manifold anyway because of the PITA the 3in intake is to get onto my turbo. It should be easier the second time around.

 

Any reason you're going for so much injector capacity?

i wish i had just done this instead of buying 850's

Those injectors are awesome. Super easy to tune too. I'm saving up for a set for my car

I can't smell any fuel, but it's hard to believe that the regulator chose the day of the swap to finally crap out.

 

Mine crapped out too when I did an injector swap.

 

I think that the extra stress of air in the lines might just be enough to push it over the edge.

I'll probably do that kit if I decide to shoot for E85. Right now I'm more than satisfied with 21 psi on 93 pump and I have plenty of headroom with DW 850s.

 

Even though I left that bolt off when I had the manifold off, I'd probably have to remove the intake manifold anyway because of the PITA the 3in intake is to get onto my turbo. It should be easier the second time around.

 

Any reason you're going for so much injector capacity?

 

If you do this carefully, the intake will stay on the turbo the whole time. I was almost careful enough. It would probably have stayed on, but I didn't think to detach it from the front of the manifold and eventually I wiggled it loose. However it would have been nice to have tons of space to align the injectors, rails, mounting bolts, and the spacers for the mounting bolts. So like I said I'm not sure if it really saves time to keep the manifold on the car.

 

I didn't do this for extra capacity, I did it to see if I could smooth out my idle and get more consistent fueling in boost. I had some spots where I had to put 9s in the fuel table to get 11s at the sensor, it was RPM dependent. I'm a little concerned that the nonlinearity wasn't uniform, so some cylinders may have been getting more fuel than others. The idle is now smoother, but I haven't gotten into boost yet.

I've got a PLX gauge showing AFR in a seismograph-style display, and the line used to be rather wiggly all the time. I thought that was normal. It still wiggles up and down while I'm driving, but while I was idling in the parking lot at work I noticed that the gauge was displaying a perfectly flat line. I never saw that with the old injectors (Perrin 816s). If I hadn't just swapped injectors I would have thought the gauge was broken. I think I'm starting to see why people got so excited about these injectors.

Excited to hear these are working for you and they finally delivered!!! ( I followed your thread somewhere else (IWSTI or NASIOC, too)

 

I have a set of the injectors going in this weekend converting my '05 from side feed to topfeed... I went a slightly different route, I picked up a lightly used set of '09 STI fuel rails, some welded/ported/polished topfeed TGV deletes and the ID-1000s with PnP adapters.

 

I will probably be doing an E85 tune, but the price difference between DW 850s and the T1 kit is very small is what made me decide to go this route... and I was able to cobble my kit together for <$700 with careful shopping!

I've got a PLX gauge showing AFR in a seismograph-style display, and the line used to be rather wiggly all the time. I thought that was normal. It still wiggles up and down while I'm driving, but while I was idling in the parking lot at work I noticed that the gauge was displaying a perfectly flat line. I never saw that with the old injectors (Perrin 816s). If I hadn't just swapped injectors I would have thought the gauge was broken. I think I'm starting to see why people got so excited about these injectors.

 

Link to your gauge? How do you like it?

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/MiscLegacy/PlxAfrFlatLine.jpg

 

That's the flat line I was talking about... I have the 52mm non-OBD2 version shown here:

http://www.plxdevices.com/multigauges.html

 

I like it a lot. The AFR seismograph is some pretty neat eye-candy.

I'll be picking up this injector kit as well...gonna rotate the manifold, do tgv deletes at the same time...gonna run all braided lines and end fittings too...lord have mercy on my soul this winter as I'll be living in my garage doing this plus installing rotated turbo and rotated fmic kits...

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z151/Legacy_NSFW/MiscLegacy/PlxAfrFlatLine.jpg

 

That's the flat line I was talking about... I have the 52mm non-OBD2 version shown here:

http://www.plxdevices.com/multigauges.html

 

I like it a lot. The AFR seismograph is some pretty neat eye-candy.

 

thats a cool gauge. I'd be putting the car into open loop to hear the intake and watch the picture for entertainment.

Thank you for posting this! Didn't realize how non-intrusive these rails are for fitment!

So you did a series configuration, not parallel? Any chance you can do a x4 egt sensor setup to see how it works?

About how much did you spend on fittings and hose to make the rails work?

 

The cheapest I can piece a parallel kit is about $200

I know if/when I go this route, a pre-made hose kit would certainly be a worthwhile purchase. Since it would fit a wide variety of Subarus, I can't believe they don't already offer it along with the custom rails.

PM 5250 Performance if you want a quote for a hose and fitting kit

So you did a series configuration, not parallel? Any chance you can do a x4 egt sensor setup to see how it works?

 

My original plan was to do a 4xEGT, get some measurements, and then switch to parallel. However if the measured AFRs match the targets in WOT pulls as well as they do in cruise, I may just keep the current setup.

 

The inconsistency of my old injectors made me very suspicious about per-cylinder variation, since all 4 didn't even add up to the target AFR. However this setup is far more consistent (for idle and cruise anyway) even though it has two fewer pulse dampers (there was one in each factory rail). So I dunno. I still like the idea of comparing both setups, but hooking these up was a pain in the ass and I kinda like the way this setup looks.

 

So, maybe.

About how much did you spend on fittings and hose to make the rails work?

 

The cheapest I can piece a parallel kit is about $200

 

For what's in the pictures above:

 

2x 6AN-to-5/16 = $40

2x 6AN-to-ORB = $30

2x 6AN hose ends = $30

3 feet of braided hose = $18

5 feet of rubber hose = $35

 

So about $150 plus shipping.

 

I just ordered an Aeromotive A1000-6 regulator, 2 more hose ends, more ORB adapters (including a couple that I won't be using right away), and a fuel pressure gauge, for about $300. I'll be installing that stuff next weekend - keeping the series routing, just swapping out the factory regulator.

do you have a part number for 6an to ORB fitting?

Not at the moment, but SummitRacing.com has a pretty good search system once you spend some time figuring it out.

 

The package with the new FPR should be here tomorrow, with some fittings included. I can get a part number for you then...

thank you...

 

i went through the aeroquip catalog today and couldnt find it...

can someone explain series and parralel setups? benefits?

can someone explain series and parralel setups? benefits?

 

Series is where the fuel flows in order of left side injectors first, right side second. Like a snake, it weaves around hitting injectors one after another.

 

Parallel is where a set of Tees is inserted. Gas flow is split with a T into two directions so gas is fed to both the left side and right side at the same time. Then another T is used to put the split lines back to one line for the fuel pressure regulator.

 

The million dollar question is how do you tune each cylinder for parallel, and because of that unknown, is it better to leave it series.

 

Someone can find out if they dump a lot of money into 4 EGT sensors

 

 

 

BTW I was thinking one could do this with just 2 EGT sensors, moving just one around once a set of two cylinders is matched up very evenly. Already have one sensor so another is just $109. Yay or nay? 4 really any better?