I'm currently in the middle of LS427/570, Tremec T56 Magnmum F swapping my 1987 IROC. I removed the 350 TPI engine last May and the last time the engine ran was probably late April 2025. The car and the engine are low mileage; 28,117 to be exact.

I don't know whether or not I will ever use the engine for anything but when I disassembled it, I carefully labeled all the wiring so that I could install it all in another car or whatever in the future. Maybe sell it, I don't know.

Now I'm worried that whatever ethanol gasoline that is still in the fuel rail and the injectors will turn to a nasty get and clog everything up requiring either professional cleaning or injector replacement. They are not inexpensive. What can/should I do to clean the current, "getting real old" gasoline out of the injectors? I want them to be clean, dry and ready to be used sometime in the distant future.


350 TPI engine coming out in May 2025. If you look closely in the engine bay, you can see all the blue tape labels of where all the wiring harness connectors go. I'm pretty **** about stuff like that.



Here it is just waiting to be put back into service some time in the future. Maybe. Anyway, the engine is covered now.

 

Take it apart and use compressed air to blow out the passages. Maybe let it sit for a day, reassemble.

 

Probably a crapshoot no matter what you do. I would probably make a fitting to connect an air compressor to the fuel rail, set my compressor pressure a little higher than the fuel pressure regulator and blow out any leftover fuel in the rail. Then with air pressure on the rail, connect 12V power to each injector and blow out any fuel in them.

On the motor, I'd also pull all of the spark plugs and spray fogging oil in each plug hole and rotate the crankshaft a bunch of times by hand and then put the spark plugs back in. Plug, cap, tape off, etc. the throttle body, exhaust ports and any open vacuum ports.

 

I would energize the injectors for a couple seconds and blow a quick blast of shop air though the fuel rail to push any remaining gasoline out of the rails/injectors. Further, you could fill the rails with oil and cap them.

 

Komet, Transam and Tom, thank you for your suggestions.

In addition to blowing air through the fuel rail and injectors, I'd also like to spray some aerosol fuel injector cleaner into the rail and blow it through each of the injectors just to clean out as much ethanol gasoline as I can. I know this fluid will go into each cylinder so maybe I should remove and leave the spark plugs out for a couple of hours then spray the fogging oil in.

 

That would work. Probably would let it evaporate out for a few days before fogging the cylinders and sealing it up.

 

Definitely blow out the fuel. Then spray them with some WD40 and blow them out again. If you are going to store them for months, you may want to repeat the process more than once. You do not want the fuel or any kind of liquid for that matter gumming up the nozzel

 

It's going to be very long term storage. I have no plans for this engine for the foreseeable future. The engine is a very low mileage engine, 28,117, and I'm going to keep it mostly because my 20 yrs old daughter is interested in an IROC. Maybe I'll buy her one and this 350 would be a good engine for it. On the other hand, if I never end up using it, well I don't have too much invested in it.

I'll plan to blow each injector out multiple times. I was planning on shooting some aerosol carb or fuel injector cleaner into the fuel rail and then energizing each injector one at a time. I'd use compressed air to blow the cleaner through the injector. Obviously all of this liquid is going to go into each cylinder. I'm thinking that I'd better remove all the spark plugs to let this liquid evaporate.

 

I know I heard of some fuel injector company having some called 'injector juice' for storage of injectors. Or maybe I dreamed it up. IDK

Here it is.

Injector Juice Kit – Fuel Injector Connection

 

I like to clean everything then wrap it all up in plastic, zip lock storage bags are my savior larger items get trash bagged.

 

Just thinking....if the injectors are the stock multecs don't even waste your time. Just dump them.
In the event you decide to get the car up and running just get yourself a set at that time

 

A vote for 2-cycle oil in the rails. I've stored a few with a 100:1 2-stroke mixture in the stabilized gasoline, and started them 2-3 times a year with no issues. Prior to that, my '86 had the injectors cleaned/flowed twice before it had 20,000 miles on the odo.

 

As far as I know, these are the OEM injectors that came on the engine from the factory. I don't know anything about them. I'm more of an LS guy these days but to be honest, I don't know anything about LS injectors either. I guess I'm just fuel injector ignorant.

I'll go take a look on Rock Auto and see what a new set of Multecs would cost.

 

Airwolfe, thank you for posting the links to the fuel injector videos. I watched both of them and even a third video where a guy showed how he cleaned fuel injectors with an aerosol can of carb/fuel injector cleaner.

I'm learning a little bit more as I keep researching and getting advice from all of you on this forum.

 

I just took a look and the least expensive injectors are about $30 each. None of them are GM (Multecs?) The AC Delco are $72.79 each as of today and that is for their "Gold" line which is china made. Everything AC Delco Gold that I've seen is chinesium so I'm going to assume that these are as well.

 

I won't be starting this engine for the foreseeable future. Maybe I should just clean them and either store them dry or with that fancy, injector juice in the videos that Airwolfe posted.

 

Best bet is to pull the injectors, flush them with brake cleaner or mineral spirits, then blow them out with compressed air, should prevent any ethanol gumming issues for long-term storage

 

i wouldnt worry about it. put the engine in the corner and let it rot until you think you will want it again.
Byt that tie, youll need to replace all the seals and gaskets as they will leak like an old person if you dont
at that time you can drop off your fuel rials and injectors and have them cleaned for $12 each one.
injectors have 2 orings youll need to replace at the same time, so, no need to worry about it now.

 

Thanks, everyone, for all of your suggestions. I really didn't know anything about cleaning and storing fuel injectors.

I've never disassembled a TPI fuel rail/injectors but I did find this video and I know there are plenty more out there:
Very informative video. Looks to be a decent amount of work. I guess I could just be lazy and keep everything intact and just allow each injector to spray into its respective cylinder. I'd removed the spark plugs to let the cleaner evaporate.