Discussing fuel lines on another thread I felt it necessary to point out the poor quality of the OEM fuel regulator. In the picture below with my modified fuel rails the tiny can at the top left is the old fuel reg. Compared to the Sard its absolute crap.


Now if your happy to leave this tiny piece of hardware running your modified pride and joy go ahead, I can't. Unlike a fuel pump if your fuel regulator fails its game over. Changing to a decent regulator made sense to me, the Malpassi was an option, however the Sard is a lot sexier and way better engineered. For under $300, I felt it was a good investment.

To then buy all the other hoses and fittings, cut, trim, gut the old regulator, silver solder, and splash on some paint it was less than $100 for these parallel Fuel Line mods. Done at the same time as the Sard fuel regulator, retuned when a new ECU was fitted, it was not imho an expensive modification. An upgraded fuel pump had been previously fitted.

Done as a DIY its a really affordable and enjoyable modification that helped my MY99 to safely achieve a 12.83 Qtr on a TD04 turbo, standard internals and original gearbox.

Has anyone bothered to fit a turbosmart one yet? the ones that are adjustable just by turning the top. Are malpassi sufficient? mine is one, is it worth upgrading?

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morgan,
the mods might look/sound cool for a hot-4's subscriber, but in reality are not necessary. the function of a stock FPR couldnt be simpler, and hence doesnt require over engineering or 200grms of billet cut down to look pritty, its pure function is to maintain a static fuel pressure of 299kpa regulated against manifold pressure.
the stock FPR operates a 1:1 ratio and is dead accurate when compared to aftermarket adjustable equivelents.

for further info, http://members.iinet.net.au/~tuna/Tu...Regulators.pdf

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Long live the WRC

Dont listen to Tuna with all his science and lack of marketing bullshit.... Turbosmart know whats best for me!

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onya Polar, another class contribution

Yes 43 psi is the typical target with our regulators. Mine is set at 40 psi or 276kpa. Should I upgrade the turbo in the future and want to lower IDC's retaining the 440cc injectors, increasing fuel pressure another 10 -15% would be the smarter option. You can not do that with the OEM item.

Having a wide band lambda on your Motec is still not going to tell you every cylinders individual temp, its still just an average. You will never know if there is an imbalance using your existing method.

Research measuring each cyclinders EGT is the only method and it would be great to hear from any one who has done this. I thought MRT had but I am unable to find it atm. They even recommend a twin fuel regulator set up?

I hear what you are saying about that tiny shitty little excuse of a regulator having a simple job, but when is a better item a problem?

I think fuel is one of those areas where u can almost never go too overboard... from pumps to swirl pots to injector size.... hard to go wrong as long as the computer is adjusted to suit. My 700cc injectors and Malpassi and Very loud fuel pump seem to do the trick in combination with my earls fittings on the end of each rail and the central fuel feed.

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Polar
Yes the earls are very good fittings. So you have a 2.5L, V5 STi, leather Interior, 6 Speed GBox...plus fuel mods..= NICE! Keep working on the aftermarket driver and you may catch me and Max one day

The speed fittings I used are a push fit only with the correct hose...no clamps at all when silver soldered. They are good to 200psi or 1379kpa and being black look original. No hiding the Sard Regulator, it sits nice and prominently...Yes Officer its a Fuel Regulator

Here are some more happy snaps:
Drivers Side Rails


LHS Rails

with equal length headers, each exhaust pulse is almost perfectly placed in 25% sections of the overall exhaust flow, as mentioned before with the high speed sampling from the motec wide band sensor, there was no major differences in the lambda for the entire exhaust cycle, with stock headers this wouldnt be possible, as the merge collectors mix the flows at different intervals giving the boxer tone. while i admit measuring a single point is not as accurate as measuring individual cylinder trims- the system i am operating is accurate enough to give me confidence that there are no black-sheep cylinder operating tempuratures or mixtures.


onya mrt, if i ever wanted propaganda to sell a blow off valve, ecutek or intank fuel surge tanks... thats the place to go. seriously i trust their research like i would a native with my car keys. please read my document on the true cause of the single cylinder leaning out issue, it all comes down to the correct placement of the air line which regulates the return line (which in turn regulates rail pressure), incorrect placement of this air line gives a single cylinder a lean mixture every cycle, the cylinder that cops it is always the one on the runner with the regulator air line attached.* this is the case for when you exceed 1 bar of boost.

oh and 'we rally-you pay!'

better maybe on paper, but statistically ive heard of more people with fuel regulator problems -after- fitting an aftermarket reg, then before with people at stock pressure, as mentioned the solution to maintaining a decent IDC is down to the fuel pump size and its ability to match its fuel pressure with volume, this avoids the situation of a fuel pump reaching its maximum volume against pressure and the IDC's going exponetially to compensate for it.

basically i dont care if people change the regulators, but please understand how the regulator works and why its there before listening to a sales pitch or flicking through a magazine, im sure if there was issues with the FPR's as fitted to a factory subaru then they would have addressed this years ago with different componentry. infact the whole industry would probably be turned on their heads as the majority of vehicles today operate the practically the same component.

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Long live the WRC

"Yes the earls are very good fittings. So you have a 2.5L, V5 STi, leather Interior, 6 Speed GBox...plus fuel mods..= NICE! Keep working on the aftermarket driver and you may catch me and Max one day"

You have like a 60 year driving lead on me maddog ... when I am in my twilight years im sure all that experience will make me a better ddriver too.

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Touche Polar, but you started when you were in nappies at the time

Looking at the small size of the steel OEM fuel lines under the inlet manifold was enough to make me want to replace them. The Rally guys upgrade these with larger hoses to compensate for what they perceive as a flow restriction. But what would they know...

Statistically 42.47% of all statistics are made up. The fact of the matter is if you increase the diameter of the fuel lines you can flow more fuel. If you then run parallel lines you have significantly removed the risk of imbalanced fuel pressure inherent with a series feed. Sucking the hind tit is the analogy used by a South African friend of mine...

Optimising the performance of all the cylinders is another way of putting it. Yes you can run big numbers on original systems given a strong pump and a regulator that works. But why not get bigger numbers with a few simple hoses?