Another Q down.

[Dabizzo1]

Well all, my Q had a catastrophic engine failure. 3 month old oem purple tops failed and stuck open, dumping fuel into both cylinders. Ray Brandt Infiniti confirmed very low compression in both cylinders 1 and 6 due to gas wash of the rings, in addition to newly found rod knock when it ran. Motor is a dead soldier...Ethanolized gas is the culprit. I donated my car to Bridge House locally, so if anyone is looking for a near pristine Q for parts, jump on it. Brakes, alternator, ac compressor, and all other injectors have less than 10k on them. Not a ding on the car either. I will miss this forum, and thanks to all who have helped me in the past. Modern fuel is killing these cars. With a motor swap, this car needs NOTHING else...I don't have the time, so I opted for the tax write off. The car is a rare BK8 midnight blue 1994 base model with peanut butter interior with oem BBS wheels. Good luck with your cars and God bless. Boris Palacios

[Q45tech]

Where did you buy the brand new oem injectors? Sure it wasn't an installation [oring] failure.....................never seen an old or new style [94-96] stick wide open that would require an internal spring failure.

Incompetent injector/o-ring replacement is very common seen it dozens of times.

[Dabizzo1]

All from Joe...I saw the tech pull them in front of me (proper depressurization procedure as well...he owned 2 of them before) after he pulled fuel soaked plugs out from 1 and 6. Both had ohmed to infinity and obviously failed dynamically as well. Both cylinders failed the power balance test via Consult and compressionwise as well. The tech went so far as to immediately change the oil immediately due to severe gas leakdown into the crankcase before going any further...looks like the purpletops are prone to failure as well.

[qship96]

I am shocked 3 month old injectors could be damaged that bad by ethanol. it just doesnt seem possible. I seriously wonder if something else has gone wrong here, possibly cracked injector bodies before or upon installation allowing fuel to reach injector windings?

[maxnix]

Boris, this is really sad. But I wonder exactly what caused such catastrophic failure. Maybe more than 10% ehtanol in the fuel?

Thankfully none here in Austin yet. Maybe Obama will cancel this nonsensical corporate farmer subsidy?
Modified by maxnix at 7:32 PM 11/24/2008

[Dabizzo1]

Dunno...I babied my car with Shell super every time and iso heet every month with 1 fill up. The guys at Bridge House complimented me on the condition of the Q. I can only attribute it to the previous owner's negligence of some kind dooming the car.

[Q45tech]

Nothing you described indicates that the injector failed open!

[Infinitiguy19]

That sucks that that happened, why not perform and Auto-psy?

[Dabizzo1]

I'm guessing the fuel dump could also be due to failed o-rings...PPastos in another thread said he's had multiple failures. My orings were new, oem, and perfectly seated. I'm guessing the fuel dump whatever the cause maybe hydrolocked the car enough to affect a rod resulting in a resounding knock. What a tempermental $@# fuel system assuming oring failure is prominent with these cars. Forgive my tone, but I'm a bit pissed...gonna go to the gym now.

[maxnix]

I thought Deatschwerks replaced your injectors in the rails?

[Dabizzo1]

Nope...not this car. All new oem purple tops...6 from joe done by yours truly and 2 previously by the dealer when I first got it. This car ran perfectly through the Gustav evac and everything...it never missed a beat. The car began to wobble and miss about 100 miles into my last fill up, wanting to die at every stoplight until I pulled into the driveway and THEN, it died. Hydrolock and pinched rings were the 2 things I was neurotically careful about from the get go. This came out of the blue. I guess we could argue all day long about whether it was the injectors or the orings that dumped the gas...I'm frankly over it at this point. I did everything right and the car still failed me. I'm just glad it didn't happen during the evac. THAT would have sucked. You live and you learn i guess.

[Q45tech]

The o rings are not failure prone but the humans who install them are! Which 2 failed the 2 the dealer did or the 6 you did? Or a combo.

[maxnix]

Good question. But I would assume, perhaps incorrectly, that O rings do not typically fail months after installation.

I think injectors need to be considered, especially if less than a year old.

[Jesda]

It is very easy to make an error when installing o-rings and seating injectors. I've done it myself, but fortunately caught it and replaced the part ASAP. I am sorry to hear about your loss.

[Unnatural1]

Good question. But I would assume, perhaps incorrectly, that O rings do not typically fail months after installation.

I think injectors need to be considered, especially if less than a year old.

True enough. Anything is possible.

Even if ethanol is causing an issue, 3 months is a very short period of time for that kind of thing to become evident. Then again, I haven't seen an increase in injector problems with any other make of vehicle, Mazda, Toyota, Honda, etc., since the addition of ethanol to gasoline. In fact, I've seen no injector problems at all, save for one S13 240SX with 2 bad injectors.

Sorry to hear about your Q.

[Q45tech]

We had a rash of 90-96 injector failures [on Q/J/G] in the 90 days following the conversion to E10, however this has tapered off, as the weak aged already abused injectors failed sequentially.

It's been 6+ months plus since I last replaced 4 of mine.............still have 4 with 18.8 years 319,800 miles].

Today our greatest E10 problem seems to be Lexus fuel pumps after 8+ months of exposure.

[Q45denver]

Today our greatest E10 problem seems to be Lexus fuel pumps after 8+ months of exposure.

Have you narrowed it down to the ethanol itself or the rust and corrosion caused by the water separating out?

[greg_atlanta]

We had a rash of 90-96 injector failures [on Q/J/G] in the 90 days following the conversion to E10, however this has tapered off, as the weak aged already abused injectors failed sequentially.

I've been debating what to do with my '92 Q. Injectors 7 & 8 are bad (per Byron), maybe one more (Tommy said one more was iffy, forgot which one). You're saying if I replaced 2 or 3 injectors the other 5 or 6 could last a while? I'm driving the car once a week around the neighborhood right now (runs great, injectors don't get funky until the engine warms up).

Tommy replaced the injector harness last fall, also removed and cleaned all injectors at the time. Not sure if that helps.

[oldmako]

This is a very sad thread...sorry to hear it dude.

Not to hijack but please edumacate me on this:

Are the injector problems confined to the 4.5 engine or has the 4.1 been affected as well?? It seems to me that most of what I have read (here) is the 4.5 engines.

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Q451990]

To my knowledge the 4.1 injectors have not seen the failures. I believe this is the first failure of recently replaced phase 2 (94-96) 4.5 injectors as well.

Knock on wood, my aftermarket BWD injectors are still going strong.

Heath

[sdkhalsa]

I am facing a similar situation with my '94 Q. One of the o-rings opened-up a year after installation(injector tests fine), dumping several gallons through the system in the course of about 7 miles. There was not even a hint of missing in general operation; and specifically on the day of failure, the engine ran great until it cut out. On inspection, the o-ring appeared in good shape, but the injector tip had come off(oem injector about 9 months old). Currently the compression is very low in all cylinders, although the engine runs OK after repairing injector problem. Hoping that the unusually low compression is the result of huge build-up of carbon in cylinders, but that is an unlikely scenario. I will retest compression in a few weeks. Probably two-thirds of my vehicle maintenance has been tied-up with injector problems. The o-rings have rarely failed on assembly, but more often several months after. They have never shown any signs of nicks or breakage. I change all o-rings whenever I have to pull the plenum.

[Denver90Q]

How did you check compression? Not sure that it is possible on these cars as it takes a couple hours to remove the spark plugs and by that time the engine is cold again.

[sdkhalsa]

Yes, it took many hours. Unfortunately, the car was not runnable at that time so hot it was not. I took the readings as a further check for gasket leaks, having previously run a cooling system pressure check. I was expecting to see a low reading on the cylinder that had been directly flooded and was surprised to see it in all cylinders. This of course lead me to think that there was a problem with my gauge which I cross check against a second gauge. Right now the car is running pretty well with no indication of oil burning or excessive blow-by. Any good suggestions for de-carboning cylinders aside from taking everything apart?