Four months ago I made the conversion from the OEM twin turbos to a larger, single turbo made by Precision. Since then, I've used the car as a daily driver -- racking up over 10,000 miles in that timeframe with no issues to note. That includes driving through a ton of different conditions, including side roads and dirt parking lots. Even though the engine bay could use a detail, and is covered in a layer of dust, everything is holding up extremely well.
The BMS single turbo filter is key in protecting expensive hardware and has done a great job so far.
Now I'd finally found the time and collected all the parts to feed this ST setup the fueling it deserved. Prior to the teardown, I gave the car a quick exterior wash.
Once everything was dry, it was time to get the car situated inside for a quick interior cleaning.
After vacuuming all the carpets and wiping down all the surfaces, I removed the rear seat knowing I'd need to access the fuel pump cover at some point. I also used the seat belts to secure the grey felt layer up and out of the way.
Before moving to the trunk to disconnect the battery, I rolled down the front windows and moved the power seats as far forward as they would go so I'd have as much room as possible. For what it's worth, I also have plans to pick up a full size spare, jack, and some other tools for a roadside emergency. I need more than a can of Slime and a cigarette lighter powered air compressor for as many miles as I travel; oftentimes over an hour away from home.
Using simple green, a brush, and a light stream of water, I gave the engine bay a bath (avoiding the downpipe wrap + blanket, air filter, and alternator). At this point everything was completely clean, so I started removing things from the engine bay. A half hour later and I had managed to remove the cowl, strut bars, charge pipe, and intake manifold.
Here's a quick comparison shot of the Phoenix Race IM versus the OEM IM.
Using Fuel-It's excellent guide to replacing the HPFP on an N54, it wasn't long before we were making serious progress.
After using some creative wrench combinations to reach the three 5mm allen key bolts, I had removed my first HPFP. The old on the left, part number 7616195-03, and the remanufactured version from FCPEuro on the right, part number 7616194-03. The one on the left had 100,000 miles of use, 50,000 of high E85 concentrations, and was still holding on strong at 17psi on E20 fuel. Although I wasn't experiencing long cranks or any other symptoms of HPFP failure, the dips in the logs and misfire I'd experienced at one point when upping boost on E40 fuel, meant that it wasn't 100% healthy either.
From there, it was time to remove the hard line connection that runs from the HPFP to the fuel line and the existing Fuel-It upgraded fuel line that runs to the ethanol sensor mounted underneath the car. That line will not be reused as I'll be using the new Fuel-It Y-line with camlock fittings that connects at the ethanol sensor and runs to the HPFP hard line + PI fuel rail.
While I was underneath the car with the plastic shields removed, I wanted to give everything a thorough inspection. There had been some discussing as to how much of an upgrade, if it all, the aluminum guibo had been over the rubber version I removed. Some people had mentioned that they'd seen failures, so it was something I'd wanted to keep an eye on. Plus I had considered going back to the OEM transmission mounts to help out with NVH with the MFactory SMFW. To my surprise, the guibo was completely destroyed, and I have no reason to believe it hadn't been for quite some time. I'm honestly surprised it hadn't been giving me more trouble than it had.
Luckily, I had hung on to my OEM rubber guibo that was still in excellent condition so I could just swap them back out. For the record, I haven't launched the car, haven't even went full throttle in 2nd gear -- only a low amount of 3rd-4th gear pulls. After seeing this, I'm excited to feel how smooth the car drives with the old rubber guibo reinstalled.
The next order of business will be to hop back inside the car, remove the stage 2 bucket, and install the stage 3 bucket in its place.