Hey All,
This is going to be a TEXT HEAVY REVIEW! TL;DR version is that anyone who sees the track regularly needs to get this product, no exceptions. It is as essential as an oil cooler in my opinion.
Preface:
I was a part of production round 4 but was lucky enough to have a unit shipped early in time for the track. Phunk was kind enough to forgo anodizing my part so it showed up as raw aluminium. Fine by me, this is going in the gas tank anyway. The kits weren’t all complete so he said many pieces were pulled from previous production runs so, rest assured, no one’s unit was delayed strictly due to anodizing. As I understand it, there was still plenty of machine work to be done and Phunk works his *** off (as illustrated by 12AM PST text messages and he’s still at the shop; Phunk is from Chicago which is UTC and 2 hours ahead which means he was answering texts at the shop at 2AM)
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Now here’s something about Charles, he went the extra mile to get a unit to me early simply because I asked. He told me, “If you can’t enjoy the parts when you need them what’s the [point] in having them.” He was scrounging parts left and right to get me a complete kit. At the end of it he told me he was missing a single brass fitting. I told him to send me the part number and I’ll order it myself.
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Thursday evening he contacts me and tells me the kit is basically ready to ship but it’s 5 days to Cali. We looked up overnight shipping (parts from japan for the mad scientist, yo!) and it came out to $168. DO IT. Package went out Friday and arrived, safely, on Saturday (march 19).
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The Install:
After laying out all the parts I got to work. The instructions are well written and fairly straight forward though, as some have mentioned, seriously need page numbers. Charles has already mentioned that he’s rewriting the install guide with some of the suggestions others have brought up. The kit he put together had done away with the individual hoses that earlier models required and came with a loom that was already pre-plumbed. All I had to do was run it along the front of the fuel tank.
Modification of the factory fuel pump was simple enough, though nerve wracking. This was the point of no return since it required cutting some plastic bits that weren’t going back. A sigh of relief came when the modifications were finished and it looked similar to the illustration in the guide.
The hard part:
This is the part where you want to put on your most calming music, have a beer beforehand, and say goodbye to your family. You also want to let everyone know that if they come near you during this time they have a high probability of receiving bodily harm.
I had neglected to read the tips that other members on the forums had and thought I could simply reach into the tank with some hose pliers to pull the hoses through the tiny gap between the hole in the tank and the stock fuel pump assembly. Wishful thinking. I eventually looped some zip ties through each other to pull all the hoses out – twine would probably work better. Furthermore; the new loom that Charles made was constructed of nylon, which Charles said was a more reliable material. However, the stiffness of the nylon meant that it didn’t want to navigate tight corners and I was too afraid to force it into position. After a bit of begging and crying (real man) I was FINALLY able to negotiate the hoses into a position where they would fit over the brass fittings. HARD PART DONE! I thought I was home free at this point. Total time stuck on hard part 1.5 hours…. I wouldn’t wish this **** on my worst enemy.
Putting everything together on the surge canister was cake and I was able to do it within 15 minutes. Placing it into the tank took some doing since space is limited. Once the hoses were plugged in and the canister upright all that was left was wiring everything up to see if she would fire.
The wiring:
I should lead off by stating that wiring really isn’t my forte. I’m a deft hand with a soldering iron but only have basic working knowledge of relays and electric motors.
Wiring an electric motor up only needs a positive input and a path for electricity to run to ground. I was stumped for a short while trying to figure out where the negative terminal was supposed to go, I feel dumb for not figuring (remembering) that out initially, but I figure others could learn from that little tidbit.
In the instructions, Charles has the user draw a pin out for themselves. Due to the way the product is designed, there’s a right angle connection from the inside (in-tank) connector and the outside connector. I confused myself and reversed the connectors at this point. Once again, People more familiar with working with wiring harnesses likely aren’t going to have the same problem I’m having. So I had all the wiring done (or so I thought) and ran the power cable along the outside of the car for an initial test fire.
Clutch in, press the start button.
Crank, crank, crank….. Nothing.
Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank….. Nothing again.
At this point I was too tired to argue and went to bed.
NEXT DAY
I had plans during the day so I didn’t get back until around 6pm to start up again on this. Pulled the plugs out to try to figure out what a did wrong. Because I had the internal pins assembled correctly, my multi-meter was giving me good readings across the board which confused me even further. It wasn’t until I looked at the two corresponding harnesses together where I realized my mistake; that wasted a good couple of hours.
With all the connections in place, test fire commenced once again.
Crank, crank, VROOM. Car started up just fine. I turned the car off, disconnected the battery, and proceeded to begin wiring everything up properly. Found the best place to splice in was (if I remember correctly) the 80A wire feeding the driver side fuse box. Also, the nuts holding down the metal shield panels above the fuel tank are grounded sources so it’s easy to use a ring terminal to ground the auxiliary pump and the relay.
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With the wiring done, I fired the car up and drove it around the block, smelled gas, so drove it right back into the garage.
Charles had warned me about this. Some thread sealant on the screw posts on the surge tank closed everything up neatly and prevented fuel from sloshing out.
Problems:
With the tank sealed up and the car running I was pretty happy with myself. I had failed to notice that prior to installation I had two dots of fuel left on the gauge. With the installation complete the car didn’t show any. I chalked it up to evaporation or messing with the fuel sensor so I started filling the tank with my 5 gallon gas can. When I turned the car on again to get a fuel reading and nothing showed up I realized I had a problem.
Went back in, checked my wiring. Something wasn’t picking up. I couldn’t get a reading from my multi-meter so I went deeper in. Broke loose the thread sealant and opened the fuel tank up again. Disconnected the terminals and took the float sensor out. Turns out at a certain point it doesn’t pick up a reading and, the best I can figure, the sensor was running into interference somewhere. So I double checked the clearance and reinstalled everything. Turned the car on and I had a quarter tank magically appear.
Whew.
With everything back in place I drove to my local Costco and filled up. When I got in the car, what did I see? Half tank. Only once sensor was working.
FCUK!!
I didn’t feel like dealing with it so I went to Laguna Seca with half a read out on March 26.
The Review:
Now some might figure at this point, it’s hardly worth the bloody effort. Yes, I can partially agree with that. But when you’re on track and you can get it down to 4 gallons without any hint of fuel starve you realize what all the blood, sweat, and tears are for. Corkscrew was no problem, nor was the fast right hander two turns later. Car ran strong all day and I never had to go refuel. Five 20 minute sessions.
The fuel sender is quite loud but once all the insulating material is back in place you can’t really hear it except a slight whine at idle if you don’t have any music playing and/or aren’t talking to someone.
I only just got the fuel level sensor fixed last week. It was an obstruction on the driver’s side. Took everything apart, put it all together, and the car reads just fine. Hopefully it holds this time.
Total working time: 12-14 hours
Total estimated time if I did it now: 5-6 hours
Tips:
- Do yourself a favor, number the pages. Don’t care if you do it by hand or figure out a way to do it digitally, do it.
- Double check your pin out. Leave enough time to wire everything up and check it. I made the mistake of wiring everything up. Going to bed, then continuing the wiring process afterwards and that screwed me up immensely and was difficult to trouble shoot.
- Splice power from driver side fuse box
- External nuts on the fuel tank door are acceptable grounding points.
- Use string to route hoses during “the hard part”
- Use physical identifiers for the hoses. I found that permanent marker becomes less permanent when soaked with gasoline. I used different length zip ties.
Conclusion:
If anyone needs help installing these things in the LA/OC area, I’m basically a ******* expert at this point. I’ve ripped open the fuel tank so many times I’ve lost count. Anything that could have gone wrong, basically has with me so I know how to fix it. This thing is a NIGHTMARE the first time but will be easier the second, especially now that I have all the tools necessary. If you want to skip crying in a pool of gasoline and would like someone to put this together for you, reach out and we’ll set something up.
I will edit later with pictures that I think will add to the narrative. For now, I think this is enough to read.
Cheers!