Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

Sorry it's a bit of a long story, but anyway, I have a 340 L/H pump installed in my 05 STi to cater for increased fuel demand. It is less than 2 years old and has covered less than 6000 miles. It also has a professionally installed hard wire electrical supply via an auxiliary relayed power source to avoid unwelcome intervention by the OEM pump control.

Recently the pump failed in what I regard as unusual circumstances and I thought I would post it up here so anyone else experiencing the same thing might be able to shortcut to the cause instead of running around checking other stuff that is/was ok.

The pump make and supplier are irrelevant in this case as it could happen to any pump, so let's not start a witch hunt.

The last time the pump worked was on a short run out to visit my local Scooby specialist. They did some stuff while I was there, but nothing related to either the pump or any of the associated wiring. I drove the car home and parked in my garage. No unusual noises, pressure loss/fluctuation, or other issues of any kind.

The next time I tried to start the car, about 8 days later, there was absolutely no response from the pump. Not even an attempt at initial fuel priming. The battery is in a good state of health and the engine turned over as you would expect.

I’m not the best when it comes to car electrics, so I started asking around as to what the cause might be. I was recommended to check all the fuses, change the relay, check the wiring in the hard-wire bypass, and finally it was suggested that the Toad alarm system may well have developed a fault and immobilised the car. Now all these suggestions are perfectly valid and any one of them could have been the cause. However after spending a total of around 6 hours looking for faults, I decided to take the fuel pump out and check it. And it was dead.

Failed fuel pumps are not uncommon. But what I find unusual about this one is that it appears to have failed either as I turned the engine off, or as the ECU called for fuel prime before starting.

In hindsight it’s an easy thing to say that the pump was obviously the cause, but there were no indications that there was a problem with the pump itself.

The best thing to come of it is that I contacted the supplier of the pump to see what comments they might make about the issue, and even though it's well out of the usual 12 month warranty, they said they would send me a replacement pump FoC.

Happy days.

Turbotits

iTrader: (2)

Fuuny enough had issues with mine yesterday. Used the car in the morning. Got home around 11am, parked up as usual. Went to go out around 3:30pm and had no fuel pressure. I gave the top if the tank a thump and the pump started. Been ok ever since. Mines also an aftermarket 340lph. Id be interested to know your supplier.
Gonna take mine out and replace anyway.

Trinity

iTrader: (28)

Had the same with a Walbro on my type R, a few hits with a mallet and the AA man got it going again ....then a few days later happened again, cue mallet...worked for about ten times then I put an ebay jobbie in that I never had any problems with...never found out what the problem was as Walbro refused to honour the warranty

Turbotits

iTrader: (2)

Mines not a walbro. But only about a year old. Its dificult to prove its faulty while its working