PS: There is a fine screen on each of the injectors. I'd suggest pulling each injector and cleaning those screens. If you're lucky, they caught all the gunk and you may not even need to backflush.

Just a thought.

 

PPS: To avoid a future fire, you may want to consider replacing all the soft fuel lines in the car, at least those in the engine bay. It's a sad truth that many of these cars end up burning to death for lack of fuel line replacement. Keep in mind they weren't really designed for high ethanol fuel and they aren't necessarily compatible with it. It's not a "for sure" sort of thing, but I'd do it.

 

 

Does the poor running correspond with the engine temperature? In other words, does it run well when cold always, and then intermittently (or always?) run bad after the engine warms up? There is a coolant temperature sensor in the block that goes to the ECU, which in turn determines whether the system operates in open/closed loop (e.g. uses the O2 sensor input). The 15-20 minutes of idling sounds about long enough to get the engine pretty warm.




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Does the good or bad running depend on the temperature or weather conditions (morning=cooler, afternoon=warmer)? Like maybe the heat is expanding a marginal electrical contact in the ECU or elsewhere and making a good connection, and the cold does the opposite. Or the temperature expands a hose and closes a vacuum leak, and the cold opens the leak.

I have a hard time seeing how a random problem like that could be something bad inside the fuel system. I think it would either would run bad all the time, or run good all the time in that case. Electrical problems OTOH are notorious for acting up randomly.

 

 

I'm with Scott..try the screen thing first. Then put a noid light on the injectors to insure they are getting a firing pulse. Sounds like they are, but it just maybe an electrical issue rather than a fuel issue.

 

How would you guys suggest cleaning the screen? Just spray some carb cleaner into the rail side of the injector, or are you talking about back flushing?

 

It's sorta possible to clean the screen with carb cleaner with the injectors in hand, spraying in the inlet and slapping the injector down on a clean shop rag but you might as well at that point backflush them as you can trigger them with a 9v battery and blow cleaner through them with a scrap piece of hose jammed onto the pintle end.