Saturday afternoon was free of commitment, so I made a plan Friday night. I’m still working backwards with the EFI to try and diagnose the fuel/air mixture issues, so I thought I’d try to replicate the success I had two weekends ago by swapping the old carb back on, run the engine up to temperature, and then slap the Sniper back on to see if it would begin learning.
The first thing I did was download updated firmware to the SD card and updated the handheld and computer in the carb. The original file was six years old, so I figure they’d made a lot of updates since then.
I set the worktable up in the driveway, hauled all of the tools and hardware back out, and set up a camera. Pulling the Sniper off and putting the old carb on is easy at this point, and while I was there I removed the clear fuel filter I’d installed after the first two on the EFI fuel line. I strapped the boat tank to the bumper, connected the battery leads to the electric pump, and filled the float bowl. It only took two turns of the key to get it to light off, and with one adjustment I had it idling happily. I let it run for about ten minutes with the cap off the radiator, and then noticed it began bubbling, so I put the cap back on. I’d topped the cooling system off with about 3/4 of a gallon last week so I wasn’t afraid to run it this time.
When it was good and hot I shut it down, capped off the fuel, and pulled the 2300 off the engine. The Sniper went back on easily (I hadn’t disconnected anything) and I connected the electrical leads back up to the battery. Crossing my fingers, I fired up the engine and smiled as it started idling smoothly—faster than I wanted, but smoothly. I let it idle for a while and recorded a couple of log files for diagnosis, then shut it down to see if it would start and run consistently, which it did.
Then I tried to use it to bump the clutch, where you basically put it in middle gear, stomp the brakes, and start the engine. The force of the starter is supposed to break the clutch away from the flywheel. But my starter is very sick, so I couldn’t get it to budge. I shut the engine down and let it cool off for the evening.
Sunday morning between showers I walked back out and tried a cold start. This was the real test: to see if the Sniper unit had learned anything. I said a prayer, turned the key, and it fired right up—but more importantly, it idled smoothly and a lot slower than it had when it was warm. I did hear the fuel pump whining on the rail when I gave it gas, so I have to ask the pros whether or not that’s normal. I took another data log and saved it to my computer, and buttoned the truck up as it began raining.
The other thing I noticed was that the engine is leaking at the mechanical fuel pump location, so I fabbed up a flat steel block off plate out of 16 ga. steel for when I get under there and pull the pump off.
That’s about all I can do this week with our trip to Nats coming up; I haven’t heard back from the transmission shop yet, but I’m going to call on Monday to see if they can give me a time estimate, and that will dictate my travel plans.
