Conversion to E85!
This was quite a bit more involved than I had hoped for, but I got everything working! There are a few things that I want to clean up, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Parts installed:
On paper that's not a whole lot, but it was an
experience to install.
Step 1 was to get the AEM fuel pump installed. This should apply to all non LNF cars. This was a bit difficult going into blind, but now that I know how to do it, its simple. The pump has a surge tank of sorts (a bucket really) where the fuel return dumps. This needs to CAREFULLY be pried off to access the fuel pump itself. Once that's removed, you need to do two modifications. First, the opening that the pump power wires come through.
After that, the fitting that attaches to the output of the fuel pump needs shortening because the AEM pump is about an inch taller than stock. All I did was pop the fitting out and use a hand saw to cut it at the flange. I used a utility knife to cut the rubber gasket short to match.
After that, I drilled a hole in the cap to install
this connector to allow the wires to safely pass thru. Really slick bit of kit. As extra insurance I put some Permatex Permashield in the opening.
Now, onto the AN lines. There's nothing super fancy here. It was very difficult to figure out how to get the PTFE stuff to work at first (despite it being so simple on paper). It took me an entire evening to make 3 lines, but I got it figured out. None of them leaked so that's a plus. All I did to connect it to the stock pump is but the nylon lines short and shove in a barbed 6AN fitting. The ones I used are bulkhead because I had initially planned drilling my own send/return lines, but I found out there wasn't enough room. I also took the opportunity to add on a little place to mount the fuel pressure regulator and filter in a better spot. Please ignore the paint flaking, its on my list of things to fix
Next was wiring. I found an okay-ish spot to put the (waterproof) relay. I opted to use the stock relay trigger to trigger the new relay because OEM has some fancier safety stuff. The fuel pump turns on when it gets ignition voltage, but shuts off if it doesn't get crank signal. This is why the fuel system "primes". Anyway, I used to electrical spade connectors cut in half width ways to pop into the relay. Not really super geeked about it as a permanent solution, but it works functionally fine. I couldn't find a breakout board to any kind of connector to do it more properly so I'm open to suggestions.
And that's pretty much it! Taking it for a test drive with the new tune it seems MUCH faster up top. Really excited to see where this takes the car. Definitely need bigger rear tires
Edit: Just realized I didnt explain the studs. The LE5/LAP head has M6 bolt holes, while the manifold expects M8. I put 2 M6 to M8 studs in to guaruntee alignment of the manifold and phenolic.
