I need to know what is needed to swap a fuel injector. I'm getting injector o-rings and a plenum gasket set. Is there anything else required part wise, and do I need any special tools?

 

No special tools. Coat the orings with fresh engine oil to allow the injectors to slide in the openings easier. Be careful not to break the little nylon colar on the bottom of the injector. These help align the oring to keep it from moving as you position the fuel rail back on the engine.

 

Did you narrow your problem down to the injector? Make sure you use a replacement injector that is the same as what you have, rockauto.com has factory replacements at a reasonable price. If you use a generic injector from the parts store, you could end up with a worse running engine, as they don't necessarily have the exact same flow rate as the originals do. Your computer will then try and compensate for the mis-matched one and throw the whole air/fuel mix out of whack. Been there, done that, and never again.

 

Well we did some work on her today. I put in the NGKs, MSD wires, and swapped a coil we pulled from the junk yard but the code is still pending. SO we're going to try pulling the injector, cleaning it, and then swapping it with another one and see if the code follows it. If that doesn't work, then our only other guess is the lifter or some other mechanical issue. Thought it might be the IMG, but the plugs are turning out dirty, not clean. They looked like they had about 15K miles on them already when they probably only had like 4K.

 

Were they black and sooty, but not crusty? That would mean she's running rich. All of them, some of them, the whole left bank, or whole right bank?

 

The right bank was dirtier. Cylinder 3 had some crust, mostly sooty, but not wet, oily, or fuel smelling. Mostly black and kinda brownish. No idea if this would help, but I took pics of them (I'm a visual kind of person). Unfortunately, I don't know what order they are in other than the very last one was from cylinder 6.




Think I should go into spark plug photography? Lol.

 

so any more advice 69? the code usually shows up and sometimes flashes the cel at idle. it seems to do it most when the engine has sat for about 2 hours after driving, then starts and goes directly to low idle. the fast, cold idle doesnt seem to do it, and on/off starts dont seem to do it. but it usually comes up at idle. were going to try the injector swap this weekend

 

The plug on far left looks like its running a little lean. The one to the far right looks like it might be getting a little oil on it. The other 4 look pretty normal. My guess would be the one lean plug came from the cyclinder in question? If so your injector swap should show you.

 

The plug on the right looks like black soot to me, from running rich. If it rubs right off with your finger, that's what you have. And that's the one you said is the #6 plug, your problem cylinder. If you remove the plugs again to diagnose, mark them with a sharpie.

 

I think you are right. The shininess of the black in the photo is messing with me. Note the color of the threaded areas. The “#6 plug” has not changed color like the others. I can assume the color is due to heat? That also falls inline with the running rich theory. It also says it has always run rich since it was installed. But it could just be the photo.