Reconditioned fuel injectors - worth risking?

[pahrding]

I think I have had every fuel injector in my 91 Q45 replaced at least once, and have always used Bosch. I now need to replace another two, which may or may not have already been replaced in the past. I've lost track of which went where.The price of Bosch seems to have risen a lot in the last couple of years. Because of that, and the fact that I don't seem to have had a lot of luck with that brand, could I do worse by replacing them with re manufactured. The Python brand is selling for less that 1/3 that of the OEM.

Apart from the longevity, would the flow rate differ to the OEM and, if it did,would it matter?

[goody90q45]

[In a very quiet voice] Psst. Psst. I think they're ignoring both your threads because there's tons of info and opinions on the use of aftermarket injectors that's found by using the search button or by going just a couple of pages back in this forum reading the thread titles.

Now that I got my dig in (Sorry).....The jury's still out but Heath is pioneering the way for us. Take a look at this link and I think it will answer all your questions:

zerothread/347484

[Jesda]

Oh hell, at this point, with all the injectors the Q45 munches through, you're better off with anything that isn't a dead one. None of them last with ethanol gas.

Try anything, I say. Save money where you can, because these parts are completely disposable.

[maxnix]

Heath will attest that Python are junk.

Don't confuse German Bosch with Japanese Bosch. Different companies.

Refurbished means used.

All this is in the previous posts, as Goody45 has mentioned.
Modified by maxnix at 4:38 PM 2/12/2009

[Raxephon]

Oh hell, at this point, with all the injectors the Q45 munches through, you're better off with anything that isn't a dead one. None of them last with ethanol gas.

You gotta love side-feed injectors that sit in a pool of ethanol *enriched* fuel for long periods of time.

To the original poster, best bet is new.

But cheapest route would be used oem injectors within the 10-15 ohm spec and a guarantee from the seller of said injectors for a given amount of time/miles.

[pahrding]

Thanks for your input. I'm inclined to agree with Jesda's viewpoint. On the other hand, Maxnix has a very valid point in that reconditioned = used, but I'm sure they have been cleaned and sparkle in the sunlight! As mentioned , I've been through this scenario before and then decided on replacing with OEM because of the high labor costs. However, with the failure rate I have had, I'm not so sure. Still cannot find any info on this board on Python, as I would hate to use them if they were doa!

[Infinitiguy19]

You gotta love side-feed injectors that sit in a pool of ethanol *enriched* fuel for long periods of time.

To the original poster, best bet is new.

But cheapest route would be used oem injectors within the 10-15 ohm spec and a guarantee from the seller of said injectors for a given amount of time/miles.

You bring up a great point and idea, do top feed injectors have this problem and if not can we install them on a VH45DE?

[Raxephon]

You bring up a great point and idea, do top feed injectors have this problem and if not can we install them on a VH45DE?

I honestly do not know if top-feeds sit in a pool of ethanol enriched fuel as well or not.

(Maybe I'll cut a couple in half over the weekend and take some pics)

I do know that there are fewer top-feed injector failures due to ethanol versus side-feed.

Currently there is inadequate clearance under the "spider" plenum for top feeds.

I am looking for such a solution as well.

However, I did find these images if it helps.

[Drake57]

I've never heard of top feed injectors failing due to e-enriched fuel. You never hear of an O ring failure in a TFI destroying an otherwise good engine with hydro lock. I bought a brand new set of 8 high quality top feed injectors for less than $250.00 to fit a chevrolet. TFI's are cheap and plentiful, available in many many flow rates, I think Q45 needs a 35 lb/hour size.

So the advantage to TFI's are many, however, fitting a set to q45 would require some modifications: different fuel rail, and fitting tfi to q runners - I've seen aluminum fuel rail stock for sale, which would require machining to bore injector openings, and fitting the pressure regulator and damper, and mounting.

if stock q45 injector is sufficiently larger than a chevy injector, a machined collar could be used to fit Q runner opening to tfi.

TFI connectors are cheap and easily available.

All that is pretty easy to say, but would take some doing. If I'm ever faced with it, (and from what I hear it seems inevitable) I think that's the way I'll go. I think I can over come the mechanical challenges, the thing I'm least sure of would be what flow rate to use - I'd hate to go to all of the trouble and find I'd bought the wrong flow rate.

[Q45tech]

Every type of injector has a different latency [time in millionth of seconds after voltage is applied BEFORE fuel starts flowing to 66% of rated rate].

You cannot rely just on 100% flow rate [370cc or 35 lbs per hour] since the Q45 never exceeds ~~60% full flow rate.

Different brands have different curves due to mass of pintle, spring stiffness, interal diameter of channel..............dozens of differences.

From an engineerin point of view developing a smooth idle and decent warm up to idle is the most time consumming. Taking hundreds of hours of experiments to select the idle injector open times since there is no feedback loop from O2 just the cpu memory and caliculations..

Good luck in trying to change injectors model numbers and types.