photos by: the author
Rebuilding our OEM Turbo Buick Injectors with the Help of Injector Experts
It’s been a little while since we’ve brought you an update on Project Wicked6, our ’87 Buick Grand National project, but the wait was will be well worth it. After tackling a few obvious appearance items that have been driving us crazy for quite some time, and have finally had an opportunity to focus on what’s under the hood.
For the most part, Wicked6 is entirely stock, save for a previously installed Racetronix fuel pump and hotwire harness, and a Kirban cold-air induction system. The car seems to run and drive quite well, but as far as we know, the GN has never had its factory fuel injectors removed. This made us wonder what kind of junk resided within them, and although there are plenty of fuel injector cleaners currently on the market we wanted to take a more direct approach in having them cleaned for increased flow characteristics.
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- As far as we know, the injectors in our Grand National have never been removed since they’ve been installed some thirty years ago.
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- While removing the rails and injectors goes beyond the scope of this article, we’ll elaborate on how to pull them in an upcoming segment, but they definitely put up a fight!
Although there could be a relatively small power increase, we didn’t feel that the prospect of one or two injectors to be slightly clogged would cause a massive difference on a chassis dyno, so we elected to skip that step of the baseline process. However, after we pulled them from their rails, we gave our friend, Keith Brewer over Injector Experts a call.
Injector Experts is a down-home, one-man band that allows the customer to speak directly to the CEO, engineering department, sales and a general technician all at the same time! This is quite rare these days where you usually have to cut through a sales rep, a technichian who might know the answer, who ultimately might redirect you to an engineer (if there’s one available), who will possibly be answer your question at other companies. Keith at Injector Experts knows and does it all.
Despite the fact that 98% of his customers simply send their clogged injectors through UPS, FedEx or the United States Postal Service, we’re fortunate to be based close enough to visit him in person. Located in Rising Sun, Ohio, we made the trek to the small rural town and had Keith personally walk us through the process.
While we ultimately plan on upgrading our injectors when we install a larger turbo and make some significant modifications, we’re overly curious to see just how clogged our stock injectors are, as well as provide you, our readers, some insight on just what exactly is involved in rebuilding a fuel injector.
When we first arrived at Injector Experts, Keith wasted no time and immediately broke down all six injectors within a blink of an eye. With the total procedure taking around two hours to complete from start to finish, and for $20/injector, it’s the best $80-160 you can spend on your late-model GM vehicle’s EFI system.
Breaking down the injectors meant yanking the upper and lower O-rings, adapter ring and the seldom-seen filter. Let’s get started!
The first thing we need to do, is perform a baseline flow test. This will tell us exactly what Keith needs to know in regards to which injector(s) are underperforming, and by how much. Luckily, Keith has a very technical system to do such a task; a flowbench that is designed specifically for fuel injector testing.
With each of the six injects connected to the flow bench machine, Keith can accurately measuring the flow characteristics of each injector, in real time.
As you can see in this photo, two of the six injectors were producing fuel that appeared a little darker than the other two, and you can chalk that up to the gunk buildup that was in each of the two filters. We’ll let you figure out which of the two injectors were the culprits.
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- Keith writes jots down both, the baseline results and the final results on the Injector Test & Analysis Worksheet.
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- Each and every one of Injector Experts’ customers receives a copy of this sheet, so they can properly diagnose either a bad injector (or two or three) or another aspect of their fuel system than can be causing a lean condition with their engine.
The injectors are then soaked in an ultrasonic cleansing process that breaks down all of the gunk potentially clogging them up, using high frequency sound waves that open and close. Keith can do as many as eight fuel injectors at a time. If you look closely at the two injectors nearest to you, you can see the cleanser seeping up over the top of the one on your left, while the one on the right apparently has some blockage that is preventing that one to follow suit.
After the cleansing bath, we mount the injectors back into the flow bench to see the results of the cleanse. Although occasionally a second cleansing is needed for injectors really gunned up, this wasn’t the case in ours. All six were functioning equally well and were ready for duty!
Here’s a side by side comparison of the OEM O-rings alongside the new pieces that Injector Experts provide.
As you can see in this photo, there’s quite a difference in brand new fuel injector filters and the original 30-year old units that have been riding in our Buick since it was built in May of ’87.
Although not necessary with all injectors, Keith typically repaints the injectors that come into his shop, when their overly scuffed up, scratched or appear to have some surface rust. Ours had all three, so Keith sprayed them up for us. If it’s going to perform like a new injector, it might as well look like one too, right?
Upon completion and before shipping, each injector gets a dash of gear oil to keep the internals lubricated during shipping and for any potential storage time that they might sit. As we know, sometimes project cars or engine builds in particular, might take a bit longer than what we’d like and Injector Experts understand that.
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- The shipping department of Injector Experts is well-organized and always filled with incoming and outgoing orders from all over the world.
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- While waiting for our injectors to cleanse from earlier in the day, we caught an assortment of injectors from customers all over the country, including these TPI F-body injectors from New Jersey.
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- The piles of used, broken O-rings, filters and the like quickly collect as Keith restore each set of injectors that he rebuilds.
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- As each order goes out, Keith packages each injector individually and puts them in a styrofoam filled container to the customer.
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- When each injector arrives at Injector Experts, the entire process is documented on the Injector Test and Analysis Worksheet. It allows for a depiction of the before and after results, so you can see which, if any, were underperforming and what their flow rates were after the test.
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- On the back of the Injector Test & Analysis Worksheet, is a customer information fallout form, which specifies exactly what the process includes, as well as a space to allow you to depict your vehicle info, and if Injector Experts included any additional components were used in rebuilding your injectors.
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- This is the breakdown of our injectors. Initially, we only had two injectors that were underperforming slightly, due to some sludge buildup, but were otherwise performing on par with a new OEM injector.
Here’s the finished product; our freshly restored 24-lb Turbo Buick injectors. New seals, new filters, no more performance-robbing debris and a fresh paint job. They’re as good as new, and will bring our stock Grand National up to snuff, restoring some lost performance.
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of GMEFI Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the brand’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next modifications for his own cars.
