Reviewer's Notebook: C&C Fuel Injector Service

Cleaned, balanced, and numbered fuel injectors ready to be installed. Better than new for less than a third the price of new parts!

One look at my injectors and I knew I had a problem -- and worse yet, replacement injectors are dealer-only parts that cost about $150 each.

Samples of what C&C replaces when they rebuild injectors. From left to right: cracked o-rings, clogged filter baskets, cracked seats, crusty pintle caps, and cracked and chunked pressure sleeves.

C&C Fuel Injection, in Reno, has a few different levels of fuel injector service: they can do a simple rebuilding and cleaning -- or, if you send them more than just one set of injectors, they can rebuild, clean, and test them, putting together a best-matched set. After a few phone calls, I had a buddy's set of fuel injectors, my own set, and another two sets from the local salvage yard. All told, I showed up at C&C with four sets of injectors, and I wanted two matched sets -- serious overkill.

C&C has a trick computerized flow-bench that allows them to vary the pressure and frequency of the injector pulse to best fit your application. Just about any shop with a flow bench can do that, but C&C's bench can automatically cycle injector pulses to imitate a motor running from low RPMs to way-beyond redline, and back again. This precision cycle is repeatable and measurable to a very fine scale. Cycling the injectors across their capacity allows C&C to tune injectors across the engine's entire power curve, instead of just optimizing a match based on one engine speed.

Cleaning

Detail of the fuel injector flow bench graduated cylinders. The left most injector is blocked, and the other injectors vary as much as 20%, which isn't at all unusual for such high mileage units.

When I left the shop, all 16 injectors, even the ones that had previously been entirely obstructed, were firing clean patterns, and they were scheduled to be flow-tested later that week.

Balancing

C&C sells a kit to add a bit of zoom to late model Land Cruisers. Does a water-intercooled blown Cruiser sound tempting? How about if it were a bolt-on kit tested and implemented on other trucks?

Along with the rebuilt and balanced injectors, they also deliver a copy of their data for your injectors. This detailed report gave me an idea how badly I needed this service! C&C measures each injector's coil resistance and inductance, as well as fuel flow rate and volume under three different conditions: wide open, pulsed delivery, and cycled acceleration. Each injector is tested for leaking under load, and the spray pattern is qualitatively evaluated. Looking at the reports for all the injectors, it was easy to see how each injector worked individually, and how they could deliver me a set of injectors that were within a half percent of each other.

Installation

Installing these cleaned and matched fuel injectors was a task, but no more so than installing a stock set of injectors would have been. I unwisely chose to install the original equipment replacement o-rings, and after I had everything back together, when I keyed the motor, I was rewarded with a spray of leaking gas. I guess Craig really knows his o-rings; I should have listened to him.

After a few hours more work, the motor was idling, holding an indicated 72 psi of fuel pressure. I'd had the motor apart for more than a week, so side-by-side comparison was out of the question, but it sure sounded s-m-o-o-t-h.

I took a test ride, and the word to describe it, again, is SMOOTH. Ever driven a vehicle before and after the engine has been disassembled and blueprint-balanced? That's the closest comparison I can draw. My little four-banger was spinning so smoothly. It says something when these kind of results show through Swamper-induced noise and vibration.

Dyno time isn't cheap, so I opted to use my tried and true test track, a section of gently sloping highway where I can do timed full throttle fourth gear runs between 30 and 75mph. Clocking the sweep of the needle with my stopwatch has served me well in the past -- I've tested exhaust and engine modifications this way and later verified the improvements on a rolling dyno. With my under-powered 2.6-liter engine, acceleration occurs slowly enough that I've plenty of time for measurement, and it tests the engine across a good chunk of its rev range. I can generally get back-to-back runs within two-tenths of a second of another, and I was tickled and surprised to see times average just over a half second better with the balanced injectors. This isn't all that scientific, but it is reproducible. Note that my 'before' runs occurred when it was fifteen degrees cooler than the 'after' runs. With that temperature difference, the 'after' run should have been slower, not faster.

Conclusions

If you have a fuel-injected motor with more than 50,000 miles on it, consider having C&C service your injectors. You can also have them balanced, making use of C&C's vast array of core injectors. Some customers send in multiple sets of their own injectors and get a rebuilt and balanced set as well as spare rebuilt injectors. Be sure to ask for the special ORC pricing.

C&C is a serious high-tech shop that builds race engines but is also accessible to the home builder. In addition to restoring stock EFI systems and components to peak performance, they specialize in making Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) systems perform and installing after market EFI systems. They can test, engineer, customize, and produce performance EFI systems and components. If true engine performance is your goal, give them a call today!

C&C also has a computerized airflow testing bench to optimize porting of heads, throttle bodies, and other engine parts. Dave Capurro (the other "C" of C&C) has the experience to take the fullest advantage of this tool. Anything that air flows through can be improved -- and Dave's experience focuses development dollars where they will produce the largest gains.