Fueling the Fire

In the past, I had encountered several occasions on the dyno where the tuner said something like: "Can't go higher (whp), fuel maxed out already!".  I'm sure many of us have had the same problem during our crave for more power out of the engine.  To those who are unfamiliar with the term, it means that the stock fuel system can no longer be tweaked any further to supply more fuel to the combustion chamber to make more power.

Because of the modifications done to the cylinder head, as well as replacement of the intake manifold and throttle body, and usage of higher profile camshafts, the amount of air that is rushing into the combustion chamber has increased significantly.  To take advantage of this, more fuel is needed to keep the Air/Fuel ratio at its optimum level to produce the much desired power.  Coupled with proper ignition tuning, we should be able to fine tune the engine to work exactly like what we want it to, when we want it to.  Good idle when standing still, and when we floor the paddle, it would give us a big grin in face.  Because of this, fuel system upgrade is essential!

The first to look at is the fuel pump.  The stock fuel pump is said to be more than enough for application up to 200whp.  That should be enough for the engine that I am building now.  Nevertheless, I have replaced the stock fuel pump with one from the EP3 Civic Type R, since the later is relatively newer than the stock fuel pump that might have been there in the tank since 1996.  So hopefully it'll perform better and will last longer.  Some said that its flow rate is somewhat higher than the stock pump, but I can't find a written data to support that claim.  The pump looks exactly like the stock fuel pump, so there's no need for its photo .

Next is the fuel filter.  I went for the AEM unit.  The manufacturer claimed that it flows better than OEM filter.  But honestly, I picked it because it look nicer than then stock unit, and add colors to the engine bay.

Exiting from the filter, I have replaced the stock fuel hose with a stainless steel braided unit by Russell.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of it, but it's a complete kit that looks like this:

The hose is then attached to the Skunk2 Composite Fuel Rail, that is lighter and stronger (as well as nicer) that the stock rail, and claimed by the manufacturer to cause the fuel to flow at a much colder temperature than the stock metal unit.

Finally, the task of spraying the fuel directly into the combustion chamber is given to a set of 370cc RC Engineering saturated fuel injectors.  This should give sufficient fuel for my current application, as well as future modification if I decide to go with higher requirement (if the injectors last that long!).