Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications General Mods SVT Contour Replacement Fuel Pump

For about 3 months or more now my SVT would act up with anything less than say 1/2 a tank of gas, in particular - jack rabbit starts or taking hard corners on the gas. The car would sputter as it was being starved of fuel. So after SEARCH ING the forums I came across Edorfox\'s Fuel Pump removal info and pictorial on removing and cleaning the screens on the pump unit (returnless)

I new this was a fuel issue as the last time I changed my filter, silt came out of the filter inlet!

Anyhow, last night I ripped out the rear seat and uncovered the tank. I had to make gusset cuts around the rear of the hole as it doesn't sit directly over the tank opening and thus makes it a BI-ATCH to remove the pump otherwise.

I removed the retaining ring (which is a POS BTW!)
and then removed the swirl pot/pump/fuel-level-sender assembly. Instantly I saw my problem, the bottom screen had fallen out from its home in the bottom of the swirl tank. It was dirty, but I can guess that it had been off for a while.

I seprated the sender from the pot and then opened the pot the expose the pump.

The filter sock was FILTHY!, and inside the pot was coated with silt.

I cleaned everything with brake cleaner and my air hose and then though - Hmmm, this pump looks a lot like my Eclipse pump. I still had the stock Eclipse pump from my GSX after I pulled it out to make way for a 190lph pump - back in the day.

I put them side by side and the two were almost identical except for 3 things:

1) The Eclipse pump was about 1/2" longer over all
2) The electrical connector was bigger/different
3) The sock was a different shape

The sock was easily removed from the stock SVT pump by prying it off with a screwdriver, and it fit onto the Eclipse pump perfectly (there must be a standard for fuel pump bases)
The only trick was that it was longer and the connector would not connect.

Now, the stock pump has a rubber isolator that goes on the base and a rubber sleeve that goes around the top - with these two things on the Eclipse pump - it made it impossible to fit into the pot and reassemble, so I tried and leaving them off, and what do you know - it fit together with a little squeezing of the lid onto the base!

Finally I cut off the stcok connector about 2" up the wires, crimped on new standard female spade connectors and plugged them in.

At this point everything seemed good, but who nows if my frankenstein fuel pump contraption would work or not, so I put the swirl pot back together and reinstalled it into the gas tank.

I tried to start it, and at first my ass'ole was twitching as it wouldn't fire, but after about 10 seconds it caught - it just needed to reprime the gas line - PHEW!

Took her out for a test run down to the gas station and out onto the express way and everything was working PERFECTLY. Double-checked my O2 readings off the S-AFC and everything seemed good there too - no leaning out whatsoever.

So I guess this means that if you NEEDED to, you could just swap out the pump and not the whole frikkin unit if your pump died or started acting up like mine did($80 vs $270)

And if you go by way of forced induction on a returnless car and find that you are running out of fuel I guess you could upgrade to a bigger pump like a 190lph or 255lph, like the Eclpise Turbo, boys and girls do when the up the boost. FYI the stock Eclipse 2G turbo pump is ~155lph.

Here is a link showing different flow rates for Walbro upgrades and the stock Eclipse pump also Walbro Fuel Pump Flow Rates
Also Road Race Engineering has some interesting info on pumps too: RRE Fuel Pump Data

So now I am happy I saved myself $270 and the car is running better than before as I think I was running into fuel starvation on tip-in and WOT at high RPMS!

Good find Shwartzski!

So Stanzi your running returnless system with a 155LPH pump? I think stock is 85 LPH so thre was some question if the ECU would be able to compensate for the extra pumping abaility,

ie Lets say the O2's said it was lean and needed fuel the ECU would raise the voltage to the pump to lets say 12V, then it its stoich and the ECU lowers the voltage to say 4V. What was unkown was if the ECU woudl realize that instead of 12V it only needed 10V to get the same amount of fuel OR it wouldn't have to run it at 12V for the same time period as the stocker before it hit stoich then when it would have cut to 4V it says "well that is still too much fuel and I'm cutting it back to 2V"

Do you have the ability to check your Fuel Pressure? I would be interested in if if increased or not, if not then we know for sure the ECU is smart enough to compensate for the extra flow.

Last note was the GSX a returnless pump as well?

First off it Stazi - no extra n.

I think that the way the ECU works is that it monitors fuel pressure at the rail and will proportionally increase voltage to the pump until it is satisfied that it has the fuel pressure required. That is not to say that if you fitted something like a 260lph Supra pump that it would be able to regulate something that big. It may have a hard time keeping the pressure low enough, depending on what sort of voltage resolution the ECU has i.e 0-14V or say 10-14V

Nonetheless I can say that I have yet to see any adverse effects to using this pump.

Pump per say are not return/less, they are just an electric motor, and as such will pump according to the voltage supplied.

The Eclipse used a "return" style fuel system with manifold pressure enrichment, i.e. as boost increased the signal to the FPR would increase and thus proportional close the return orifice to increase fuel rail pressure. Voltage was held constan at ~14V, when running.

I do not have a fuel pressure regulator, but I am confident that if I were running into problems they would be almost instantly evident. My fingers are crossed that it won't throw a "fuel overpressure code", but I doubt it as I am not running rich anywhere. My fuel maps stayed the same.

My Bad :p

I always thought (It's been a few years since electrical engineering class so pardon my ignorance if nothing makes sense) that some electrical pumps could handle voltage flucuations where as others couldn't, and over time the transistors would wear out on a pump that couldn't handle the fluctations. What I'm wondering is that they may act the same in teh interm but the return style pump might not last as it might not be able to take varying from 0-14V or what ever the range is.

There is a 190 LPH returnless pump from Warlbro for $120 which includes the adaptor kit for a cougar/contour did you investegate this at all? I would jump on that but it just seems like too much pump for even a heavily modded 3L like I'll have. Either way this is a great alternative, keep us updated on the life span of the thing! Thanks!

Interesting find...And the reason why I NEVER throw extra or upgraded car parts away. Did the Apexi show any different a/f ratio's?

Is your fuel rail pressure the same? Awesome find man!

Another thing to consider is that the Mitsubishi pump is designed to run at ~13.5 volts. (roughly +10-15% at peak)
They purposely overcurrent their pumps to get more flow out of them. There is a special circuit for it built into the main fuel harness.

I know both the Conquest/Starion & Gen 1 DSM platforms do this. Others models/years may as well...

Therefore the flow rating on the stock pump may be a little closer than it's rating indicates. Also it indicates atleast some voltage change is allowable by the pumps under normal designed operation.

UPDATE - This pump needs fuel!

I notcied that running under say 1/4 a tank will cause this pump to suck the pot dry at WOT after a few seconds. The stock flapper door on the swirl pot obviously is not large enough to to feed the pot.
So I think I have to step down to a Carter 110 lph pump (Mustang pump) ~$80. It's 25% higher flow than stock (88 lph), but it should be better. I may even look into making another flapper door on the pot to allow for more fuel to enter the pot.

OK, I got a buddy at Ford to look up the specs on the stock SVT fuel pump. Part # XS2U-9350-AA

Specs are as follows:
Max Power Consumption @ 30Lph/270kPa = 50W
Max Current Draw = 10.1A
Nominal (NEW) = 8.49A
Nominal Performance = 154Lph
Min New = 125Lph
General Test Condition = 12.0V/350kPA

So now it's off to find a pump with the same specs.

UPDATE!
Called Walbro and they found the pump for replacement it is a TTP298.

The only catch is you have to reuse the sock on your old filter, but that's no biggie. You can clean it out using a spray can of carb cleaner.

So now I am waiting on a price. I will update further when the information arrives.