tweeking your fuel-pressure

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JarnoVWPolo6N
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tweeking your fuel-pressure

Post by JarnoVWPolo6N »

Well, here's a little "how-to" about tweeking your fuelpressure, it's quit simple actually, and costs you 0 pounds/euros/dollar to be exact (who doesn't like the sound of that? :lol: )

I only have pics for the spi engines, but it's not that hard on the mpi's too, so I'll describe it as best as I can lateron in this thread.


Some remarks:

If you choose to do this, it's not my bad if it turns out wrong, just follow the instructions and/or tips, and you'll be fine. And tweeking your fuelpressure will decrease your mileage a bit. Also don't expect miracles on the performance, sometimes you won't even notice it, it has the most effect on (slightly) modded engines (no, a backbox IS NOT an engine mod)

Basic info on fuelpressure:
Your engine has a fuelpump in it, which supplies your engine of fuel (duuh). This runs from the tank to the injector(s) and the not used fuel is directed back to the tank again. And in this redirection of non-used fuel lies the trick. The pump generates pressure (in Polo's commenly around 3,5 Bar), but not all of this pressure is used, since there is still fuel being redirected. So the harder you make it to redirect the fuel, the more pressure is used to inject the fuel into your engine by the injector(s).
And that's the basic info for increasing your fuel pressure, all that is needed is to make it harder for the fuel to go back to the tank again if not used.


SPI-engines:
Now we known the basics, it's time to get to the actual trick.

For SPI engines, take of the airfilter, so that you see your throttle, injector and FUELPRESSURE REGULATOR (which is indicated below by the red arrow, the black round thing abow is the housing for the injector, and underneath the injector is the throttle):

Image

The trick is to take out the pressure regulator, caution, there is a little spring underneath it, so don't just unscrew it's 3 bolts (indicated below):

Image

And here's the spring:

Image

Keep the spring and the red film in place, just don't touch it, since it should stay in place perfectly.
Now to increase your fuel pressure, you get a little piece of small/narrow metal piping which fits into the shallow part of the regulator (as can be seen in the picture below) Don't use a screwdriver or something like that, since then you'll have the chance of hitting through the regulator and f*ck it up:

Image

The area I mean is in the directmiddle of the round top of the regulator.
Put your piece of pipe in it, and give it some slight taps with a hammer (make sure you do this on a secure surface, and don't soil the inside of the regulator).

DON'T HIT IT HARD!!!! or else you can either go through it and f*ck it up, or you max. out the pressure, which isn't good (more is not always better).

No place everything back and your done!

My tip is to just tap the pipe with the hammer just ones or twice, with minor taps. Then mount it all back and drive round a while. Since the procedure can always be repeated if you are not pleased with the result (so you can tweek it further if you like, but you can't untweek it so to speak, so don't give it a good ram at the first attempt)

How far to tap it with the hammer? Depends, I did this on a mates mk4 1.3, who had a different cam and inletfilter, due to the cam it needed more then I would do to a "standard" engine, DON'T OVERDO IT!!!


MPI engines:
Like I said, I don't have pics for this, but it's not that hard. First you'll have to find your fuelrail, which is a long metal rail, with a round "thingy" on one of the ends. This is your FUEL REGULATOR.
It's mounted on the rail with a clip, which you can take of, now you can take of your regulator, fuel from the inside of the rail will probably
drip out, but not taht much, since your engine is off and therefor the fuelpump isn't working/building pressure in the rail.

Now follow the procedure described above on tapping with the hamer and metal small/narrow pipe. Mount it all back and give it a try.

Voila, you just tweeked your fuelpressure.
Rmachines
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Post by Rmachines »

This is a good post! thanks.

I have a few questions though.

1, What diffrence will this make?
2, doesnt increasing the fuel pressure using stock injectors etc.. make no diffrence what so ever and cause potentual damage?

What other modifications would have to be made to make this effective on a stock engine? From all my years experance as a mechanic i have only ever know this done when the engine has had uprated injectors or turbo charged etc... But i did hear about this being done a while back so im curious as to what effects it could have. :)
JarnoVWPolo6N
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Post by JarnoVWPolo6N »

Rmachines wrote: 1, What diffrence will this make?
2, doesnt increasing the fuel pressure using stock injectors etc.. make no diffrence what so ever and cause potentual damage?
1) increases your fuelpressure, but since your running an injection system, the total amount of fuel injected at stabile rev's won't really change. But as soon as you plung the gas-pedal, the injectionsystem will be "fed" at a higher pressure, resulted on my engine to a better throttle response, and faster acceleration in higher speeds (for instance my time from 100km/h to 140km/h dropped notably, needs mentioning I had a 3F cam and ram-air inletsystem)

Doesn't do any damage, but like I stated in the first thread, DON'T OVERDO IT!!! That will have a change of causing damage.
About up-graded injectors, this is a nice little mod to do on your stock injectors if you don't mod the engine much. Like you said, bolting on a turbo requires much more injected fuel, mostly done by up-graded injectors and higher fuelpressure. In those cases of turbo-charging, the pressure is increase by a couple of Bars. This mod doesn't go that much higher, mostly half a Bar up, which is nice for a stock to slightlymodded engine.
But when installing a decent Schrick/Crane/Cat cam etc. or other more high mods, buying a up-graded fuelpressure regulator is advisable :!:

But since this doesn't cost anything except some time, and as far as I know most of the people here don't really mod their engine, it's a nice little mod to do
Rmachines
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Post by Rmachines »

thats great! cheers. Might give it a go later!.
PD
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Post by PD »

Could a similar thing be done with an MK5 polo? I guess it can?
JarnoVWPolo6N
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Post by JarnoVWPolo6N »

PD wrote:Could a similar thing be done with an MK5 polo? I guess it can?
Can be done on all cars, all you need to do is localize the pressureregulator and demount it to do the trick
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