At 120,000 miles, I’m sure my fuel injectors would benefit from a cleaning.
I would like to hear some opinions about whether the level of services
described below (from RC Engineerings web page www.rceng.com) justify a
US$24 X12 cyl price tag when compared to having the injectors cleaned by
just anybody who does the service. I have seen prices ranging from US$9 per
injector, and up.
The purpose of cleaning and flow-testing is to 1) remove any contaminants
inside or outside the injector that impede fuel flow or degrade fuel spray
pattern 2) to accurately measure each injector’s fuel flow ability and 3)
acquire quantitative data on injector performance the vehicle owner can use
in matching injectors or tuning the engine’s fuel system.
Any set of fuel injectors will benefit from RC Engineering’s clean and flow
service, This is even true of new injectors because the individual-injector
and system-total fuel flows must be known for performance tuning purposes.
It is not uncommon for a set of original equipment (OE) injectors to have an
unacceptably wide range of fuel flow and it’s possible to even have new
injectors that do not function properly. RC’s standard testing process
identifies those problematic injectors.
The test process is as follows: first, your injectors are installed on RC
Engineering’s custom- designed-and-built, computer-controlled injector
flow-testing equipment. A unique, non-flammable, gasoline-like test fluid is
pumped at a precisely-controlled pressure through the injectors while they
are pulsed by injector-drivers built into the equipment. The volume of fuel
passed through the injector is accurately measured for a set amount of time
and from those figures, fuel flow is derived. During the flow- test, the
injector spray patterns are visually inspected and analyzed by
RC’s technicians using both bright room and strobe lights.
After the initial flow-test, your injectors are transferred to an ultrasonic
cleaning machine and connected to injector drivers. They are submerged in
cleaning solution and pulsed while being subjected to ultrasonic waves. The
combination of the solution and the ultrasound aggressively clean the
internal and external parts of the injectors.
Finally, the now-clean injectors are reinstalled on the flow-tester and run
again. At the conclusion of the test, a printed report is produced. This
report lists: fuel flow rates (in pounds-per-hour and cubic centimeters per
minute) before and after cleaning, and spray pattern assessments for each
injector tested. Also included is the “system balance” number
which is the flow difference, expressed in a percentage, between the
injectors having the highest and lowest flow rates amongst the lot of
injectors tested. The system’s total fuel delivery in lbs/hr. and cc/min
along with a computation of potential horsepower at three different brake
specific fuel consumption rates concludes the report.
The charge for RC Engineering’s standard clean-flow-balance service is
$24.00 per injector. If overnight shipping is used, the turnaround time is
three days.
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