The repair manuel says the fuel regulator is not repairable.says we gota buy a whole new fuel rail.Trouble is they dont have them,only a rebuild for the regulator.I'm talking 2.8 tpi stuff here.They must be rebuildable.Any one done one?If we cant buy fuel rails than salvage is our only hope.What is different about a 3.1 fuel rail and the 2.8?

 

Yes. Rockauto has the guts of the regulator. I changed mine out a couple of months ago.

 

thankyou,just wondering,what was your car doing or not doing that lead to you fixing it?I'll have one of my 2.8 fuel rails out in the next day or so and have a 3.1 rail left over from a swap.is there any differences other than the injectors and conectors?

 

I don't know much about the 2.8 except it's very close to the 3.1. I've only worked on the 3.1. It ran badly and rich because the injectors were bad. I replaced them with a set from Southbay. As for the regulator problem the car would have a lot of trouble starting when warm/hot. It'd fire but not be able to idle then die. I'd have to play with the gas pedal to get it to fire and keep running. Once it was running it seemed to be ok. However, I pulled the vac line that goes to the regulator and it didn't just smell of gas, some gas ran out of it! So this meant the gas in the top of the regulator was getting sucked into the intake when the engine started and the idle couldn't compensate. I replaced the diaphragm and spring and it's back to key only starting every time. Plus, after some Seafoam treatment I've gone from 16 mpg to about 23. Still running a bit cool and rich.

 

thats some good stuff Base91!From what I'm seeing in the tpi 2.8's.The older ones with the v belt set ups(85@86) have vac lines running in different directions but seam to end up going to the same places.For the most part.Seams like when I did my 3.1 swap into a 2.8 car that I was told I could use the 3.1 rails and injectors.The 2.8's were cleaner so I went with them.I posted some pics of this 86bird in history forum under stock pics of engine bay

 

the 2.8 fuel rail has provision fo rthe cold start injector the 3.1 rail does not.

other then that the rials are identical, the 3.1 has slightly large rinjectors

 

So would the 89 be the same as the 3.1,I think they did away with the cold start injector in 89?Unless that was only on the v8 engines.

 

Im almost positive but all Pre 90 had the 7th injector. Im sure Project89 will confirm if thats right or wrong as he's had a few 2.8's

 

That was the '89 V8 TPI engines, not the MPFI set ups.

The torx screws for the FPR likely have the no-tamper spike in the center of the head. Can knock them off with a hammer & punch. Then use a regular torx bit on them.

RBob.

 

Sorry thanks for the correct.

 

You can buy the security bits (T10?) at a hardware store. Or buy a whole set of 30+ different bits for not too much. Easier than knocking out the center pin.

 

thanks,10$ at autozone for the set