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!
