Is it worth to send injectors for cleaning and testing?

[shogun]

just removed both injector rails on my project car Highline from 03/1990. E32 750 V12 M70 engine.
I decided with my friend Take to rip everything out and renew as much as possible.
Have taken out the intakes for later sealing and cleaning, throttling valves, MAF's, fuel lines (I can only suggest you to check them, I was really surprised to see hoses in the fuel return line from the DK's which broke like glass, they were hard like stone. Very dangerous!!!).
Valve cover gaskets, all rubber in the intake lines, coolant hoses, Thermostat, new radiator (made in Japan with aluminium tank instead of plastic. We use the rest from an radiator from my grey 750 for that. I do not want to have the plastic connector neck broken again) washwater tank etc.

Now coming back to the injectors. As almost everything like the oxy sensors, spark plugs, distributor caps, -rotors they are the original ones from 1990. because of the damaged distributor caps, the oxy sensors were damaged, the spark plugs are black and to be replace, all injector are black and covered with a kind of carbon, one was even completly blocked from outside.

Of course they need new gaskets/seals, but if they still work 100% I cannot check with my limited tools. Seals cost here about 5 $ per piece, at autohauaz.com 0.65 $. Sending them for example to cruizin performance it will cost per injector approx. 20 $ at least with shipping to/from Japan-USA.
http://www.cruzinperformance.com/fuelinj.html
Here in Japan they charge for one injector abt. 200 $, in Germany 130 $, in USA 42.31 at autohaus, and these are the latest version type
http://www.autohausaz.com/secure/PartImages/0280150715.jpg

Of course, as usual, the V12 is more costly, 42.31 x 12 injectors = 507,71 for new ones.
20 $ x 12 = 400 $ for repair and testing.
So the difference is not that big. And as usual on the V12 engine it is a PITA to get to them.
Intake manifold system has to come off, the gaskets cost a fortune if damaged, in total about 400 $. Usually I use Hylomar to seal them again.
http://www.autohausaz.com/secure/PartImages/11611736657.jpg

So, it is not a money question, just: how long last injectors and is it worth to repair and test them or waste of money after 15 years use.
The engine has 130K km = 80K miles. But of course a lot in traffic jam here without moving, so the actual "no-moving miles" the engine has run is maybe 150 k miles.
Your opinions please.
Thank you.

Edit: for sure I will find 12 injectors on my parts cars which finally work, but that involves a lot of work by installing and removing and installing again, as no suitable test tools for injectors in my garage.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I'll be curious as to the answer you recieve, I've wondered about that myself. I sent the injectors from my 944 Turbo in to be rebuilt/ tested, and it made a huge difference, especially for $12 per injector. It only had 118k on it, but turbo engines run hotter too, and things seem to wear out quicker on them.

[Bill R.]

have them "rebuilt". The injectors themselves do have some wear internally on the pintle and nozzle as well as the bore that the solenoid pulls the pintle up in.. fuel carries some small amounts of abrasive in it that is bound to have some effect on these parts after many miles. The rebuilders don't actually rebuild any of these parts they just clean the injectors and flow test them. The patterns one every injector will vary some due to wear even if the flow rate is very similar.. I myself on a higher mileage car would just put the new ones in. Now if it had lower miles and the injectors were just plugged up like i see on a lot of 99,2000 etc gm cars then cleaning or "rebuilding" is just fine.. i see a number of gm cars with only 50 k or so that have these problems. But on any car with 150k miles the injectors themselves have to have some wear. The new ford ones from five O seem to be one of the best deals around.






just removed both injector rails on my project car Highline from 03/1990. E32 750 V12 M70 engine.
I decided with my friend Take to rip everything out and renew as much as possible.
Have taken out the intakes for later sealing and cleaning, throttling valves, MAF's, fuel lines (I can only suggest you to check them, I was really surprised to see hoses in the fuel return line from the DK's which broke like glass, they were hard like stone. Very dangerous!!!).
Valve cover gaskets, all rubber in the intake lines, coolant hoses, Thermostat, new radiator (made in Japan with aluminium tank instead of plastic. We use the rest from an radiator from my grey 750 for that. I do not want to have the plastic connector neck broken again) washwater tank etc.

Now coming back to the injectors. As almost everything like the oxy sensors, spark plugs, distributor caps, -rotors they are the original ones from 1990. because of the damaged distributor caps, the oxy sensors were damaged, the spark plugs are black and to be replace, all injector are black and covered with a kind of carbon, one was even completly blocked from outside.

Of course they need new gaskets/seals, but if they still work 100% I cannot check with my limited tools. Seals cost here about 5 $ per piece, at autohauaz.com 0.65 $. Sending them for example to cruizin performance it will cost per injector approx. 20 $ at least with shipping to/from Japan-USA.
http://www.cruzinperformance.com/fuelinj.html
Here in Japan they charge for one injector abt. 200 $, in Germany 130 $, in USA 42.31 at autohaus, and these are the latest version type
http://www.autohausaz.com/secure/PartImages/0280150715.jpg

Of course, as usual, the V12 is more costly, 42.31 x 12 injectors = 507,71 for new ones.
20 $ x 12 = 400 $ for repair and testing.
So the difference is not that big. And as usual on the V12 engine it is a PITA to get to them.
Intake manifold system has to come off, the gaskets cost a fortune if damaged, in total about 400 $. Usually I use Hylomar to seal them again.
http://www.autohausaz.com/secure/PartImages/11611736657.jpg

So, it is not a money question, just: how long last injectors and is it worth to repair and test them or waste of money after 15 years use.
The engine has 130K km = 80K miles. But of course a lot in traffic jam here without moving, so the actual "no-moving miles" the engine has run is maybe 150 k miles.
Your opinions please.
Thank you.

Edit: for sure I will find 12 injectors on my parts cars which finally work, but that involves a lot of work by installing and removing and installing again, as no suitable test tools for injectors in my garage.

[shogun]

Thanks Bill,

just to clear things:
The engine has 130K km = 80K miles. But of course a lot in traffic jam here without moving, so the actual "no-moving miles" the engine has run is maybe 150 k miles.

The 150K km is my guess for engine running incl. the 'miles in traffic jam/not moving'.
So the ACTUALl mileage of the car and engine is 80 k miles.
My guess that the engine has run more while in traffic is of course a rough estimate.

I will try to find a shop here in Japan to make a test, if that is somehow in a good relation to the price of new ones.
If that is not feasible, I will buy the injectors new in USA. The price is only about 25% compared to prices here.

EDIT:
Just checked at fiveomotorsport. They are much cheaper than even autohausaz.
12 for abt. 378 respect. 448.50 $ only.
http://www.fiveomotorsport.com/Injector_SetsBMW.asp

Which ones are the most recommendable?

Bosch 0280150715
NEW/Flow-matched
15lbs/hr

Bosch - NEW
Bosch 0280155969
Design III - 15lbs/hr

[Bill R.]

pintle design.




Thanks Bill,

just to clear things:
The engine has 130K km = 80K miles. But of course a lot in traffic jam here without moving, so the actual "no-moving miles" the engine has run is maybe 150 k miles.

The 150K km is my guess for engine running incl. the 'miles in traffic jam/not moving'.
So the ACTUALl mileage of the car and engine is 80 k miles.
My guess that the engine has run more while in traffic is of course a rough estimate.

I will try to find a shop here in Japan to make a test, if that is somehow in a good relation to the price of new ones.
If that is not feasible, I will buy the injectors new in USA. The price is only about 25% compared to prices here.

EDIT:
Just checked at fiveomotorsport. They are much cheaper than even autohausaz.
12 for abt. 378 respect. 448.50 $ only.
http://www.fiveomotorsport.com/Injector_SetsBMW.asp

Which ones are the most recommendable?

Bosch 0280150715
NEW/Flow-matched
15lbs/hr

Bosch - NEW
Bosch 0280155969
Design III - 15lbs/hr

[shogun]

Thanks Bill!

And the funny thing is, they are the cheapest ones :D
Bosch 0280155969-F87E
12/Set: $378

[Booster]

I have always taken ALL the injectors in stock and hooked them up one by one to a bench top arrangement . A car battery hooked up to a good fuel pump running Toulene or Laquer Thinner or Alchohol through each one from one plastic tub/bucket/cup to another to clean them and look at the spray patterns.Tapping gently the metal body to encourage dislodging contaminants.
Once I feel I have suficiently cleaned them internally.....I use a stopwatch and a vile or CC tube to check each one for the number of CC's per 60 sec. they perform/flow.
I put the best matching flow injectors together as a matched or balanced set eg; 6-12.
In this test and clean.........you'll be able to spot those injectors which have spray pattern issues or terminal wear.
Of course.........most of this can be avoided by simply running the occasional injector cleaner with the gas in the tank every 5-10 tankfulls as preventive maintenance, since its the clogging particles which amplify the wear points internally of the injectors in the first place.
Vinny

[632 Regal]

I was going to recommend 5Omotorsport, thats where I finally found mine at half the cost of anywhere else...I mean how can you go wrong?

III has a better spray pattern...think it will mean anything in the real world as in performance/mileage on our cars?

[shogun]

III has a better spray pattern...think it will mean anything in the real world as in performance/mileage on our cars?

Ohhh, and we talk here about a M70 V12 5 Liter engine.
That consumes easily 25-30 Liter/100 km in city traffic.
The owners manual mentions 20.3 Liter/100 km for the 750iL in city traffic.
:(

On my daily driver I sometimes had 40 Liter/100 km in severe traffic jam, aircon on full, before I replaced all injectors, oxy sensors, spark plugs, distributor caps, rotors etc.

[genphreak]

Ohhh, and we talk here about a M70 V12 5 Liter engine.
That consumes easily 25-30 Liter/100 km in city traffic.
The owners manual mentions 20.3 Liter/100 km for the 750iL in city traffic.
:(

On my daily driver I sometimes had 40 Liter/100 km in severe traffic jam, aircon on full, before I replaced all injectors, oxy sensors, spark plugs, distributor caps, rotors etc.I think its false economy not to replace AFMs, O2 sensors and FIs on an M30 (in wide open countries like Oz, let alone an M70 driving around in Japan)

I'd reccomend the type IIIs from 5-O, but if the Type IIs are a lot cheaper you can at least be sure they are exactly right for the engine. I have Type IIIs, but have no empirical test data as my Type IIs were old beforehand and compelted a lot of other work at the same time as installing the new FIs. You never know, Type IIIs might not work as well :P

I will post some details about how well my car goes soon- now it has a full rebuild and will actually go (Kriss and I installed the tailshaft this weekend, but ran out of syntehetic on the tranny fill as I whimped out on buying 2 packs of Transmax X). Testing the spray patterns and cleaning the good ones yourself however is a good way to get rid of the bad ones and not spend money- depends on your budget I guess- it will dictate this. Best way to sort the bad form the good is to pull one out at a time, run the engine (or a fabricated switch to fire them regularly) and time how long each takes to flow 100ml of premium. Then clean them and do it again. You'd have to have at least one out of the 96 odd you could get your hands on that would be on-spec (and thus fill a jar the fastest).

If you do, be sure to mark each one and tabulate the data as you go. 96 would be a lot of injectors to test again due to a little oversight!

:) Nick

[shogun]

Hi Nick,

good idea to test one by one and remove the best ones.
But this is a V12 engine. To get to this buggers takes you 2 hours at least. PLUS installation of the whole stuff again 2 hours. And that to replace only one injector for testing?

No no, not on a V12, I also had the idea, but that takes too much time.

I think I am going to buy the ones from 5Omotorsport.

On the other hand I do not want to give up to test and clean them. Maybe I keep them for spare.
That is a technical challenge for the backyard hack mechanic with limited special tools available for testing ;)

Here you can see where they are hiding
http://tridem.han-solo.net/auto/erich/v12.jpg

[genphreak]

Hi Nick,

good idea to test one by one and remove the best ones.
But this is a V12 engine. To get to this buggers takes you 2 hours at least. PLUS installation of the whole stuff again 2 hours. And that to replace only one injector for testing?

No no, not on a V12, I also had the idea, but that takes too much time.

I think I am going to buy the ones from 5Omotorsport.

On the other hand I do not want to give up to test and clean them. Maybe I keep them for spare.
That is a technical challenge for the backyard hack mechanic with limited special tools available for testing ;)

Here you can see where they are hiding
http://tridem.han-solo.net/auto/erich/v12.jpgWhat I mean is to use a pulse like this on each one, away from the car... (ie on your 'scientifically approved' test bench):

http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/OTC-3398.html

Its only a shitty link but there are many out there like this. You can find them on eBay all the time- then with an empty 100ml container, chronograph and some petrol you can get the results you'll need to find the good ones. None of yours will be worn out yet. Bosch design and make the injectors too damn well for many people you know :) Nick

[shogun]

Thanks. But100 bucks for the tester? Nice tool, but how often do I need it in my life? That is a bit much.
Do you have one for lending me? Or shall I send you the injectors? Can also send you 24 injectors, plus new o-rings just ordered from Autohausaz. :)
I am not in a hurry with that.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Some guys in a Porsche club I used to participate in rigged up their own injector cleaner rig, I never saw it but it was supposedly pretty cool, and got the job done. I figured for $12 per to have them professionally cleaned, re-sealed, and tested for flow and pattern under the proper pressure, I couldn't go too wrong. I used www.witchhunter.com, great guy with an excellent reputation in Porsche circles. He includes a print out of before and after flow and pattern quality for each injector.

[Bill R.]

300 for it maybe 10 years ago, I might have used it 10 times in that ten years, so don't bother its not worth your while since you won't use it nearly as much as i do. And the better fuel injector reman. companies use a very high pressure machine to clean the injector, not the 3 bars that the system runs at normally... for the cost of a proper reman you're still much better off getting the new ones from five ohttp://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/OBJECTS/19700/19634.JPG







Thanks. But100 bucks for the tester? Nice tool, but how often do I need it in my life? That is a bit much.
Do you have one for lending me? Or shall I send you the injectors? Can also send you 24 injectors, plus new o-rings just ordered from Autohausaz. :)
I am not in a hurry with that.