Hey everyone!
Back in October or so, I had my oil pressure light come on. I freaked out for a minute until I was able to think about it. Oil was full and clean, no knocking, and the engine has VVT solenoids that run on oil pressure. I know from experience if one of those sensors quits working, the engine will run like a hot turd... and that wasnt happening.
So, I decided the sensor must be bad.. it looked like a bitch of a job from my research, and given I park the car for the winter... being late October, I decided I'd just stash the car early and get to it in the spring.. so, here we are. This looks like a job that has very little info coverage, though it seems a fairly common failure. Even the Kia shop manual kiiiind of sucks on the subject. I used to contribute a lot to the Pontiac Grand Prix community when I was there... so, now that Im here, and I've done it, I wanted to write a little about it in case it helps someone down the road having all the info in one place.
To start - I'd recommend letting the car sit a day or two. There's a stage where we're removing high pressure fuel lines, and Im not sure how long it takes for that pressure to bleed down, but high pressure fluid injuries can be serious.. like losing a finger or hand serious.
-Tools-
8, 10, 14, and 15mm sockets, a few extensions will help... like a 3 and 6" extension
6mm hex key socket
17mm crows foot wrench
Torque wrench (a foot pound wrench mainly, but an inch pound one will be handy at the end... not entirely critical)
Medium sized prybar
Injector Combustion Seal Installation Kit (Lisle p/n 34720)
One of the most important parts to this - a 24mm wrench that you're going to ruin
-Parts-
Some of this is mandatory, some of it is recommended... you can skip on gaskets, for example... but do you really want to have to hunt down a leak and redo part of the job after all of this?
The high pressure fuel lines are single use - once you torque them down, they're ruined... keep this in mind. At first I thought it was stupid, they're steel pipes, wtf? But the more I looked around, the more I realize that torquing them down deforms them to the sealing surface, trying to torque them down a second time risks it failing to make a seal. When you take the old ones off, look at the cone part of the pipe under the fitting.. it's deformed into a seal... and I dunno about you, but a 3,000PSI fuel leak under the hood sounds like bad news. That's going to get firey fast.
Plenum to Intake Manifold Gasket (29215-3L100)
Intake Manifold Gaskets (28411-3L100) x6
Intake Manifold Bolts (28319-3L100) x6
Intake Manifold Water Seals (28217-3L110) & (28217-3L120) This is a Left and Right, so one of each. My dealer had a really hard time finding these in the diagrams.
High Pressure Fuel Pipe (between HP Fuel Pump) (35305-3L001)
High Pressure Fuel Crossover Pipe (links one fuel rail to the other) (35307-3L000)
Fuel Injector Combustion Seal (35312-2E613) x6
Fuel Injector Washer (35313-3L000) x6
and the main offender Oil Pressure Sensor (94751-3C000)
It's a lot, but it's getting it done right. The fuel lines are expensive.. the combustion seals are expensive, the rest isnt so bad. I had to replace two injectors as I ruined them getting them out.
There are a handful of other parts that *may* be necessary depending on how your experience goes, but I'll get to those as necessary.
Okay - Plenum and Intake Manifold
So, first, as any good car project... disconnect the battery. We're going to be messing with electricals, and you never know.
We need to get the plenum off... before you start taking things apart, we're going to be opening the engine up, we dont want stuff to fall in. Easiest thing is to get compressed air... whether it's in a can or preferably an actual air compressor with a blowgun attachment and blast all the dirt and leaves and bugs and debris out of the cracks and crevices... look around and envision, "When I pull this plenum away from the engine, where will stuff fall *down* from to get into the intake ports?
After that, it's pretty simple so Im not going to go super in depth. You need to disconnect the two cam sensors, disconnect the throttle body plug, disconnect boost pressure sensor on the charge pipe before the throttle body. There's a bolt holding the charge pipe to the block sort of below one of the cam sensors in the belt area. There's a bunch of little bolts holding the wiring harness to the valve covers, block, and plenum that need to come undone.. you want that harness loose and moveable.
I made this quick, I marked it from memory, so it's not comprehensive... red is bolts that need to come out, blue is sensors that need to be unplugged.
Basically you want the harness able to move around, and not bolted down to the plenum we're trying to get off the car.
One larger 14mm bolt under the throttle body area that doesnt do anything except holds the plenum in place.
Once you're confident you've got all the hoses and sensors unplugged, undo the clamp holding the charge pipe boot to the throttle body, it can be difficult to pry off... be gentle and patient, dont rip it.. a rip here will result in boost leaks. Try to wiggle under it with a flat head screw driver !gently!, sometimes the rubber gets stuck to the metal... once you get that popped off, we move onto the coolant lines.
Two coolant lines right under the throttle body, again... undo the clamps but be gentle... wiggle, pull, pry, just want to break them loose and slide them off without violence or ripping.
Now we'll undo 8 10mm bolts holding the plenum to the engine:
Now is when you'll discover anything you left connected... move the plenum around gently. Test it before you really pull, you're trying to determine if there's anything still connected, holding it down... if it feels free, try to wiggle it out of it's place. If you feel resistance, stop and investigate - where is the pull coming from?
Okay, plenum is off... now the VERY first thing we need to do is block those intake ports so nothing falls down. Nothing will end your desire to live like the sound of a bolt tink-tinking down into a cylinder, and then it's time to take a head off. I used paper towels, just shove em in there so anything that falls will land on top and not go down in.
Second, we're gunna get the foam out of the way so we can get at the 8 6mm hex bolts. After the foam is out, repeat the step from earlier where we air blasted all the junk and debris out of the crevices where anything will fall down into the intake ports when we take *this* piece off. Once we're clean and ready to go, remove the 8 6mm allen bolts... I've heard these are single use, so I discarded them and replaced them with new.
Gently use a prybar and massage the intake manifold to break the seal.. it can be stuck pretty good so just be mindful of what you're resting the prybar on while you pry. Eventually you'll hear the seal pop and you can manuever it out of it's spot.
Now, we immediately do the same thing we did earlier and block up those intake ports with towels or something so nothing falls in while we work. I used paper towels.
Fuel Rail and Injectors
So we've got two fuel lines, and 6 10mm bolts holding these rails.
17mm wrench to get the fuel lines off. One that links the two fuel rails together, one that runs between the high pressure fuel pump and driver side fuel rail. Be very careful here, this is what I mentioned in the beginning. When you break the lines loose, I recommend wearing some kind of hand protection. Something heavy duty that will protect your hand from a high pressure jet of liquid, like a kevlar glove... probably eye protection. My car was sitting for months before I broke it loose, so I only got leakage, not spray... regardless, remember we're dealing with an explosive liquid that will light up in a heart beat.
The line that runs between the two rails is cake. The line that goes between the rail and pump will be a NIGHTMARE. Undoing the fittings is easy, and one bolt that goes into the valve cover holding the line in place is easy. There is a bolt on the back of the motor that took me HOURS to get out by itself... it's extremely tight, a ratcheting wrench may help... there's no way you're getting an actual ratchet and socket back there... I have no real advice, as I tried a dozen tactics to get it out and I was blacked out with despair for part of it.
Once the lines are out, discard them, I strongly recommend not reusing them. These lines run at thousands of PSI and a fuel leak at that pressure could be devastating, fire-wise.
Now we undo the 6 bolts holding the rail in. I reused these bolts.
Our prime, number one goal here is to get the rails out with the injectors. Injectors stuck in the engine is what we're trying to avoid. Nothing holds the injectors in except a flimsy clip and friction. So, I recommend giving a little spray of liquid wrench or pb blaster to the base of each injector and maybe taking a break here, let the stuff soak in.
Then, starting with the driver side one (the passenger side one cant come out until the driver side is out, due to the sensor blocking it) I used a pry bar in between the injectors right next to where each bolt goes in, just a little pressure here, and little wiggle there. A push here, and pull there... patience, grace... eventually they'll start to work loose. Make sure you unplug any that get stuck before you try to move the rails aside.
Out of 6 injectors, 4 came out for me, 2 were stuck. OF COURSE, of the two that were stuck, one of them was the one blocking the oil pressure sensor.
If any of yours pop out, make sure you get the seal out of the rail, it probably got snagged and stuck in there
Each injector has a little washer gasket on the bottom of it that seals between the base of the injector and the hole into the cylinder, make sure they come out... whether they stayed on the injector or they stayed behind in the port in the head... get them out and trash em... they're in the parts list to replace.
You dont wanna snap one of these off in the head, so again.. patience. Spray it up around the base where it goes into the head. set the prybar on the lip where it plugs into the rail, and apply pressure. Try to rotate them around, if you can get them to spin, that helps a lot. I was doing a spin one way gently tapping it with a punch and hammer on the plastic plug area... then spray, spin the other way around... every time you do that it'll get a little looser. It took me a long time, I just had to keep at it.
Set the injectors and rails aside for now, we'll focus on the oil pressure sensor for now and get back to the other stuff.
The Wrench and the Sensor
Okay, so one of the critical parts of this job is how tight of a space the sensor is in. We need a wrench that can get in there, which is the hard part. So, we got a 24mm wrench, and I said up above we're going to ruin it. We need to grind it down so it's as narrow and low profile as possible. It's going to be just about worthless for any other task in the future. I bought a bench grinder for this because it's a useful tool to have, and it was a good excuse to finally get one, but a hand held grinder can work, too.
I ground down all the way around the round part to make it as skinny as possible without breaking through it. I also ground down the shaft quite a bit because if the shaft is skinnier, we can get more turn out of it on each go... it just makes the sensor quicker to turn out and back in.
So, we're going to cut the ziptie on the sensor wire... carefully, dont cut the wire. Get the sensor unplugged. If you see that the plug is soaked in oil - good news! That's why we're here.
If you ground down the wrench good enough, you should be able to figure an angle to get the wrench slipped between the pipe and the head to get it on the sensor. Take a clear picture to get an idea of how far the old sensor was threaded in... spin the old one out, spin the new one in.
Two things here - pay attention to the orientation of the plug... you want the sensor to sit so that when you plug it in, the release tab for the sensor is accessible. Once you plug it in with that release tab pointed downwards, you may never get that unplugged again without great, great difficulty. Second thing... Im not 100% sure on this one, but most oil pressure sensors are NPT, meaning they're tapered. They get larger as you go down the threads, and if you go slam it down too tight, you can damage the housing it goes into. Dont go wild torquing it down, this is why we want a picture of about how far in it was originally... you want it tight so it'll seal, and the release tab accessible, but dont go wild on it.
Okay, sensor is in. Clean out the plug on the car side with some eletrical contact cleaner, or brake clean in a pinch. Make sure it's completely cleaned out and dry before you plug the sensor in. Now we're onto reassembly! Getting there! Take this opportunity to MAKE SURE you have the oil pressure sensor plugged in before we move on... if you forget at this stage, it'll be HUGE pain in the ass to go back and plug it in later.
Before we move onto injectors, I'd take this opportunity to vacuum up all around the intake and injector ports again, and make sure there's no debris or left over lubricant spray in the injector ports. We want everything clean and dry for the injector install, and we wont have time for it once we get started on the injectors.
- Reinstall Injectors and Seals-
So now that the sensor is in, mission accomplished, let's start reassembly. Each injector has a little black seal near the tip. This is the combustion seal... it's super important because it allows direct injection injectors to be directly inside the cylinder, where there's a ton of heat and pressure... these little rings are responsible for holding back 1200psi and 2000 degrees F. That's why we're not screwing around with reusing them. They were $35 a piece for me, and felt a soreness in and around my ass about it, but whatever, Im doing it right and not doing it a second time.
First, we gotta get the old ones off.
They're actually pretty hard, closer to plastic bands than rubber rings. So I pinched them carefull with my needle nose like this, they'll stretch briefly and then break like hard plastic. Just be careful, you dont want to scrape up the metal of the sealing surface at all.
Seal off. Repeat x6, I used a bit of brake clean on a clean paper towel or microfiber to wipe out the groove the seal sits in, as well as the tips. I stress CLEAN towel because anywhere you read about these little combustion seals, they are very very specific to say do NOT use any lubricant or oil on these seals or in that groove. It will make them not work. You want them clean and bare. Dont go nuts on the actual tip where the holes are... I wouldnt want to accidentally push something into one of those microscopic holes and make a problem.
At this stage, I'd fit the little washer gaskets to the injectors. I put a tiny, tiny little bit of oil on the metal base right under the electrical plug to help them slide on, they can be tight. Just remember, dont get any oil on the groove or combustion seal at the tip.
Okay, so after the washer gaskets, in the kit I mentioned above, if you got the same one there are multiple cones. After our seals are off, and the area is cleaned up, we'll get the cone that has .250 on it.. that's the proper size for our injectors.
You want to seat it so it's right up to the groove, but not past it. This is the cone that will stretch the seal up over the injector tip. So you'll use your fingers to push the seal onto the cone until it stops... no need to use force here, just until it gets snug on the cone.
Now, we're going to take the plastic arrow head looking part that's in the kit and place it over the tip of the cone until it touches the seal. We'll use this to GENTLY and SLOWLY push the seal up over the cone, which will expand the seal, until it gets to the groove in the injector where it will sit.
It should look like this, way too loose and floppy on the groove...
This is where we are going to sort of squeeze and mold it with our fingers like you're trying to massage it into the groove for a minute or two... believe it or not, you'll feel it tighten up and fit the groove a little better, a little tighter, but still too loose. Now we move on to the next step of the tool set - compression
Side note here, in the instructions for this kit, it specifies that the injectors should be installed asap after you use the compression tool before the seal can re-expand. Given that it seems like it's time sensitive, what I did was install the seals to each injector and mold it by hand first, then once all 6 injectors have seals on them, go through and do the compression step on the first 3 injectors you're going to install back to back, the immediately install that rail into the engine (passenger side goes in first first, remember they cannot go in any other order! If you do the driver side first, you wont be able to get the passenger side one in).
Also - if any of your injectors came out of the rail, I recommend reinstalling them to the rail, and then installing the rail as one piece. I think that would've been easier than the way I did it... and - two things...
FIRST - If you had the get violent with them at all to get them out of the head, I'd suggest closely checking them over before you reuse them.
This was one of the ones I had to fight, and I almost didnt catch that little deformity I caused... I decided to replace it because I didnt want to deal with a fuel leak.
SECOND - I screwed up reinstalling the clips onto the new injectors.. they go between the plastic part like this:
So, back on track - once we have the seal sort of molded into place by hand, we need to compress it further. Get the metal cylinder in the kit marked Ford .312. We're going to slip it over the tip of the injector knurled size facing the injector, and push it up over the seal... be gentle, twist and turn the tool until it starts to push over the seal. You're trying to work the seal, not force the tool... once you feel it start to go over, just gently work it.. twisting, turning, and pushing all the way up to the base of the injector.
Let it sit that way for 2 minutes, I gave it a little twist/turn here and there to keep working it. After the time is up, gently twist/turn/pull it off the injector. To save time, get the next injector going with the .312 cylinder you just took off.
Then go back to the first injector that's already half compressed, and repeat the same procedure with the bigger cylinder marked .310. Same thing... twist/turn/push it on gently, let sit 2 mins, twist/turn/pull it off, then move the .312 onto the third injector, while you move the .310 cylinder onto the 2nd injector, etc.
Once all 3 injectors on this rail are complete, maybe go over it once more with the .310 tool to make sure they're all good, and then we'll install that rail.
Line up the injectors and push down onto each one little by little so they all go in evenly... you can probably feel them sort of pop into place, but some of them I didnt. After I got them in as far as I could by hand, they still didnt sit flush. I used the 3 bolts that hold the rail in to pull them down into place better... I put the 3 bolts in and tightened them up little by little til it was all the way down, took em out, and tightened them down again to work it into place. Fuel rail bolts are 18lb-ft.
Repeat with the second fuel rail.
Take a minute to double check that all the injectors are plugged in electrically, and the fuel rail pressure sensor is plugged in.
Now we need to get our fuel lines reinstalled.. so we're going to get the lines, put em in place, and thread them down hand tight for now just to get them lined up.
Here's where you need the crow's foot wrench, and understand torque. The torque applied by a lever (the length of your wrench) increases as the length of the lever increases. If your wrench is longer, you'll apply more torque with the same amount of force. Why does this matter? Adding the crows foot wrench to your torque wrench makes the wrench LONGER, so we need to adjust for that in setting our torque.
www.tekton.com
See this link for details.. you need to measure the length of your wrench by itself, then measure how much length the crows foot adds (the angle of the wrench matters)... there's a calculator there you can enter in your specs.. it's not hard.
The torque specs as per Kia are 24lb-ft for the crossover pipe, and 26lb-ft for the line to the HP Fuel Pump... with my crows foot wrench I think I did 23 and 24, but do your own calculations, because your crows feet might be different than mine.
All that being said, 2 or 3lb-ft too much on this application probably wont make or break anything, you dont need to have it down to a science... but knowing what you're aiming for helps a lot.
Dont forget the hold down bolts on the longer fuel line, I left the PITA one on the back of the engine off, and reinstalled the one on the valve cover.
Okay - once we're torqued down on the fuel lines that's it... the scariest parts are over, we're moving to the end.. the rest is just slapping stuff together.
The Slam and Cram - Getting the rest of the junk back together
Now that the fuel rail is back together, it's just the easy, regular car fixin' stuff.
Regasket your intake manifold, make sure it's clean and dry where the gaskets are. I used a steel pipe cleaner on the bolt holes because mine were all corroded and junk. Get the intake manifold seated in place. 8 bolts in 8 holes... Make sure your coolant hoses on the front of the manifold are connected... once you get the manifold in place, it'll be a pain to get to them.
There's a sequence to the bolts we need to follow:
There's two stages to this... so we're going to tighten them in the order of A-H, and then 1-8
So, for A-H we're going to torque them to 4.3lb-ft, OR 52.1in-lb... this is where having the inch pound torque wrench will be nice. Most ftlb wrenches only go down to 10lb-ft... if yours bottoms out at 10, that's close enough... set it to 10 and go to 10.
Second stage, we're going to follow 1-8 (ignore the letters this time).
Spec here is 24lb-ft.
Hook up your coolant line to the nipple sticking out of the block, it'll be a pain to get back to this later.
Plenum time, regasket your plenum... clean and dry, etc etc. Get it slid into place, 6 bolts in 6 holes, and 2 nuts on 2 studs for a total of 8 fasteners. No sequence on this one officially, but I still went in an order mirroring the intake manifold... not two steps, just the order... follow the 1-8, just makes me feel better. Torque spec on these is 8.7ft-lbs ... again, most torque wrenches only go down to 10... 10 is close enough for this, no worries.
Once the plenum is torqued down, we're putting the bolt back in the big bracket under the throttle body, reconnect the coolant hoses under the throttle body, charge pipe back on, charge pipe fastener bolt to the block down under... sensors, getting the harnesses and pipes fastened back down to the plenum and valve cover. Dont forget the MAP sensor at the back of the engine, it's kinda hidden and easy to forget... also the brake booster hose is at the back and easy to forget.
I spent like 40 mins after I thought I was done, just checking, rechecking rerechecking all my hoses and sensors and vacuums.
I think that's it! Reconnect the battery, I had a fire extinguisher with me incase I screwed up the fuel connections.
It'll give you a long crank at first while it rebuilds fuel pressure. It might run funny at first... having the battery disconnected might have the computer modules needing to find their balance again.
Unless Im forgetting something, that's it... take it for a test drive, I recommend taking it easy for the first little while til you verify everything is holding together.. check and recheck for fuel or coolant leaks over the next couple days.. I drove gentle for the first two days because I was afraid of it.
I'll do my best with answering questions on specifics, or if I wasnt clear on something... let me know if I left anything out.
Good luck!
Back in October or so, I had my oil pressure light come on. I freaked out for a minute until I was able to think about it. Oil was full and clean, no knocking, and the engine has VVT solenoids that run on oil pressure. I know from experience if one of those sensors quits working, the engine will run like a hot turd... and that wasnt happening.
So, I decided the sensor must be bad.. it looked like a bitch of a job from my research, and given I park the car for the winter... being late October, I decided I'd just stash the car early and get to it in the spring.. so, here we are. This looks like a job that has very little info coverage, though it seems a fairly common failure. Even the Kia shop manual kiiiind of sucks on the subject. I used to contribute a lot to the Pontiac Grand Prix community when I was there... so, now that Im here, and I've done it, I wanted to write a little about it in case it helps someone down the road having all the info in one place.
To start - I'd recommend letting the car sit a day or two. There's a stage where we're removing high pressure fuel lines, and Im not sure how long it takes for that pressure to bleed down, but high pressure fluid injuries can be serious.. like losing a finger or hand serious.
-Tools-
8, 10, 14, and 15mm sockets, a few extensions will help... like a 3 and 6" extension
6mm hex key socket
17mm crows foot wrench
Torque wrench (a foot pound wrench mainly, but an inch pound one will be handy at the end... not entirely critical)
Medium sized prybar
Injector Combustion Seal Installation Kit (Lisle p/n 34720)
One of the most important parts to this - a 24mm wrench that you're going to ruin
-Parts-
Some of this is mandatory, some of it is recommended... you can skip on gaskets, for example... but do you really want to have to hunt down a leak and redo part of the job after all of this?
The high pressure fuel lines are single use - once you torque them down, they're ruined... keep this in mind. At first I thought it was stupid, they're steel pipes, wtf? But the more I looked around, the more I realize that torquing them down deforms them to the sealing surface, trying to torque them down a second time risks it failing to make a seal. When you take the old ones off, look at the cone part of the pipe under the fitting.. it's deformed into a seal... and I dunno about you, but a 3,000PSI fuel leak under the hood sounds like bad news. That's going to get firey fast.
Plenum to Intake Manifold Gasket (29215-3L100)
Intake Manifold Gaskets (28411-3L100) x6
Intake Manifold Bolts (28319-3L100) x6
Intake Manifold Water Seals (28217-3L110) & (28217-3L120) This is a Left and Right, so one of each. My dealer had a really hard time finding these in the diagrams.
High Pressure Fuel Pipe (between HP Fuel Pump) (35305-3L001)
High Pressure Fuel Crossover Pipe (links one fuel rail to the other) (35307-3L000)
Fuel Injector Combustion Seal (35312-2E613) x6
Fuel Injector Washer (35313-3L000) x6
and the main offender Oil Pressure Sensor (94751-3C000)
It's a lot, but it's getting it done right. The fuel lines are expensive.. the combustion seals are expensive, the rest isnt so bad. I had to replace two injectors as I ruined them getting them out.
There are a handful of other parts that *may* be necessary depending on how your experience goes, but I'll get to those as necessary.
Okay - Plenum and Intake Manifold
So, first, as any good car project... disconnect the battery. We're going to be messing with electricals, and you never know.
We need to get the plenum off... before you start taking things apart, we're going to be opening the engine up, we dont want stuff to fall in. Easiest thing is to get compressed air... whether it's in a can or preferably an actual air compressor with a blowgun attachment and blast all the dirt and leaves and bugs and debris out of the cracks and crevices... look around and envision, "When I pull this plenum away from the engine, where will stuff fall *down* from to get into the intake ports?
After that, it's pretty simple so Im not going to go super in depth. You need to disconnect the two cam sensors, disconnect the throttle body plug, disconnect boost pressure sensor on the charge pipe before the throttle body. There's a bolt holding the charge pipe to the block sort of below one of the cam sensors in the belt area. There's a bunch of little bolts holding the wiring harness to the valve covers, block, and plenum that need to come undone.. you want that harness loose and moveable.
I made this quick, I marked it from memory, so it's not comprehensive... red is bolts that need to come out, blue is sensors that need to be unplugged.
Basically you want the harness able to move around, and not bolted down to the plenum we're trying to get off the car.
One larger 14mm bolt under the throttle body area that doesnt do anything except holds the plenum in place.
Once you're confident you've got all the hoses and sensors unplugged, undo the clamp holding the charge pipe boot to the throttle body, it can be difficult to pry off... be gentle and patient, dont rip it.. a rip here will result in boost leaks. Try to wiggle under it with a flat head screw driver !gently!, sometimes the rubber gets stuck to the metal... once you get that popped off, we move onto the coolant lines.
Two coolant lines right under the throttle body, again... undo the clamps but be gentle... wiggle, pull, pry, just want to break them loose and slide them off without violence or ripping.
Now we'll undo 8 10mm bolts holding the plenum to the engine:
Now is when you'll discover anything you left connected... move the plenum around gently. Test it before you really pull, you're trying to determine if there's anything still connected, holding it down... if it feels free, try to wiggle it out of it's place. If you feel resistance, stop and investigate - where is the pull coming from?
Okay, plenum is off... now the VERY first thing we need to do is block those intake ports so nothing falls down. Nothing will end your desire to live like the sound of a bolt tink-tinking down into a cylinder, and then it's time to take a head off. I used paper towels, just shove em in there so anything that falls will land on top and not go down in.
Second, we're gunna get the foam out of the way so we can get at the 8 6mm hex bolts. After the foam is out, repeat the step from earlier where we air blasted all the junk and debris out of the crevices where anything will fall down into the intake ports when we take *this* piece off. Once we're clean and ready to go, remove the 8 6mm allen bolts... I've heard these are single use, so I discarded them and replaced them with new.
Gently use a prybar and massage the intake manifold to break the seal.. it can be stuck pretty good so just be mindful of what you're resting the prybar on while you pry. Eventually you'll hear the seal pop and you can manuever it out of it's spot.
Now, we immediately do the same thing we did earlier and block up those intake ports with towels or something so nothing falls in while we work. I used paper towels.
Fuel Rail and Injectors
So we've got two fuel lines, and 6 10mm bolts holding these rails.
17mm wrench to get the fuel lines off. One that links the two fuel rails together, one that runs between the high pressure fuel pump and driver side fuel rail. Be very careful here, this is what I mentioned in the beginning. When you break the lines loose, I recommend wearing some kind of hand protection. Something heavy duty that will protect your hand from a high pressure jet of liquid, like a kevlar glove... probably eye protection. My car was sitting for months before I broke it loose, so I only got leakage, not spray... regardless, remember we're dealing with an explosive liquid that will light up in a heart beat.
The line that runs between the two rails is cake. The line that goes between the rail and pump will be a NIGHTMARE. Undoing the fittings is easy, and one bolt that goes into the valve cover holding the line in place is easy. There is a bolt on the back of the motor that took me HOURS to get out by itself... it's extremely tight, a ratcheting wrench may help... there's no way you're getting an actual ratchet and socket back there... I have no real advice, as I tried a dozen tactics to get it out and I was blacked out with despair for part of it.
Once the lines are out, discard them, I strongly recommend not reusing them. These lines run at thousands of PSI and a fuel leak at that pressure could be devastating, fire-wise.
Now we undo the 6 bolts holding the rail in. I reused these bolts.
Our prime, number one goal here is to get the rails out with the injectors. Injectors stuck in the engine is what we're trying to avoid. Nothing holds the injectors in except a flimsy clip and friction. So, I recommend giving a little spray of liquid wrench or pb blaster to the base of each injector and maybe taking a break here, let the stuff soak in.
Then, starting with the driver side one (the passenger side one cant come out until the driver side is out, due to the sensor blocking it) I used a pry bar in between the injectors right next to where each bolt goes in, just a little pressure here, and little wiggle there. A push here, and pull there... patience, grace... eventually they'll start to work loose. Make sure you unplug any that get stuck before you try to move the rails aside.
Out of 6 injectors, 4 came out for me, 2 were stuck. OF COURSE, of the two that were stuck, one of them was the one blocking the oil pressure sensor.
If any of yours pop out, make sure you get the seal out of the rail, it probably got snagged and stuck in there
Each injector has a little washer gasket on the bottom of it that seals between the base of the injector and the hole into the cylinder, make sure they come out... whether they stayed on the injector or they stayed behind in the port in the head... get them out and trash em... they're in the parts list to replace.
You dont wanna snap one of these off in the head, so again.. patience. Spray it up around the base where it goes into the head. set the prybar on the lip where it plugs into the rail, and apply pressure. Try to rotate them around, if you can get them to spin, that helps a lot. I was doing a spin one way gently tapping it with a punch and hammer on the plastic plug area... then spray, spin the other way around... every time you do that it'll get a little looser. It took me a long time, I just had to keep at it.
Set the injectors and rails aside for now, we'll focus on the oil pressure sensor for now and get back to the other stuff.
The Wrench and the Sensor
Okay, so one of the critical parts of this job is how tight of a space the sensor is in. We need a wrench that can get in there, which is the hard part. So, we got a 24mm wrench, and I said up above we're going to ruin it. We need to grind it down so it's as narrow and low profile as possible. It's going to be just about worthless for any other task in the future. I bought a bench grinder for this because it's a useful tool to have, and it was a good excuse to finally get one, but a hand held grinder can work, too.
I ground down all the way around the round part to make it as skinny as possible without breaking through it. I also ground down the shaft quite a bit because if the shaft is skinnier, we can get more turn out of it on each go... it just makes the sensor quicker to turn out and back in.
So, we're going to cut the ziptie on the sensor wire... carefully, dont cut the wire. Get the sensor unplugged. If you see that the plug is soaked in oil - good news! That's why we're here.
If you ground down the wrench good enough, you should be able to figure an angle to get the wrench slipped between the pipe and the head to get it on the sensor. Take a clear picture to get an idea of how far the old sensor was threaded in... spin the old one out, spin the new one in.
Two things here - pay attention to the orientation of the plug... you want the sensor to sit so that when you plug it in, the release tab for the sensor is accessible. Once you plug it in with that release tab pointed downwards, you may never get that unplugged again without great, great difficulty. Second thing... Im not 100% sure on this one, but most oil pressure sensors are NPT, meaning they're tapered. They get larger as you go down the threads, and if you go slam it down too tight, you can damage the housing it goes into. Dont go wild torquing it down, this is why we want a picture of about how far in it was originally... you want it tight so it'll seal, and the release tab accessible, but dont go wild on it.
Okay, sensor is in. Clean out the plug on the car side with some eletrical contact cleaner, or brake clean in a pinch. Make sure it's completely cleaned out and dry before you plug the sensor in. Now we're onto reassembly! Getting there! Take this opportunity to MAKE SURE you have the oil pressure sensor plugged in before we move on... if you forget at this stage, it'll be HUGE pain in the ass to go back and plug it in later.
Before we move onto injectors, I'd take this opportunity to vacuum up all around the intake and injector ports again, and make sure there's no debris or left over lubricant spray in the injector ports. We want everything clean and dry for the injector install, and we wont have time for it once we get started on the injectors.
- Reinstall Injectors and Seals-
So now that the sensor is in, mission accomplished, let's start reassembly. Each injector has a little black seal near the tip. This is the combustion seal... it's super important because it allows direct injection injectors to be directly inside the cylinder, where there's a ton of heat and pressure... these little rings are responsible for holding back 1200psi and 2000 degrees F. That's why we're not screwing around with reusing them. They were $35 a piece for me, and felt a soreness in and around my ass about it, but whatever, Im doing it right and not doing it a second time.
First, we gotta get the old ones off.
They're actually pretty hard, closer to plastic bands than rubber rings. So I pinched them carefull with my needle nose like this, they'll stretch briefly and then break like hard plastic. Just be careful, you dont want to scrape up the metal of the sealing surface at all.
Seal off. Repeat x6, I used a bit of brake clean on a clean paper towel or microfiber to wipe out the groove the seal sits in, as well as the tips. I stress CLEAN towel because anywhere you read about these little combustion seals, they are very very specific to say do NOT use any lubricant or oil on these seals or in that groove. It will make them not work. You want them clean and bare. Dont go nuts on the actual tip where the holes are... I wouldnt want to accidentally push something into one of those microscopic holes and make a problem.
At this stage, I'd fit the little washer gaskets to the injectors. I put a tiny, tiny little bit of oil on the metal base right under the electrical plug to help them slide on, they can be tight. Just remember, dont get any oil on the groove or combustion seal at the tip.
Okay, so after the washer gaskets, in the kit I mentioned above, if you got the same one there are multiple cones. After our seals are off, and the area is cleaned up, we'll get the cone that has .250 on it.. that's the proper size for our injectors.
You want to seat it so it's right up to the groove, but not past it. This is the cone that will stretch the seal up over the injector tip. So you'll use your fingers to push the seal onto the cone until it stops... no need to use force here, just until it gets snug on the cone.
Now, we're going to take the plastic arrow head looking part that's in the kit and place it over the tip of the cone until it touches the seal. We'll use this to GENTLY and SLOWLY push the seal up over the cone, which will expand the seal, until it gets to the groove in the injector where it will sit.
It should look like this, way too loose and floppy on the groove...
This is where we are going to sort of squeeze and mold it with our fingers like you're trying to massage it into the groove for a minute or two... believe it or not, you'll feel it tighten up and fit the groove a little better, a little tighter, but still too loose. Now we move on to the next step of the tool set - compression
Side note here, in the instructions for this kit, it specifies that the injectors should be installed asap after you use the compression tool before the seal can re-expand. Given that it seems like it's time sensitive, what I did was install the seals to each injector and mold it by hand first, then once all 6 injectors have seals on them, go through and do the compression step on the first 3 injectors you're going to install back to back, the immediately install that rail into the engine (passenger side goes in first first, remember they cannot go in any other order! If you do the driver side first, you wont be able to get the passenger side one in).
Also - if any of your injectors came out of the rail, I recommend reinstalling them to the rail, and then installing the rail as one piece. I think that would've been easier than the way I did it... and - two things...
FIRST - If you had the get violent with them at all to get them out of the head, I'd suggest closely checking them over before you reuse them.
This was one of the ones I had to fight, and I almost didnt catch that little deformity I caused... I decided to replace it because I didnt want to deal with a fuel leak.
SECOND - I screwed up reinstalling the clips onto the new injectors.. they go between the plastic part like this:
So, back on track - once we have the seal sort of molded into place by hand, we need to compress it further. Get the metal cylinder in the kit marked Ford .312. We're going to slip it over the tip of the injector knurled size facing the injector, and push it up over the seal... be gentle, twist and turn the tool until it starts to push over the seal. You're trying to work the seal, not force the tool... once you feel it start to go over, just gently work it.. twisting, turning, and pushing all the way up to the base of the injector.
Let it sit that way for 2 minutes, I gave it a little twist/turn here and there to keep working it. After the time is up, gently twist/turn/pull it off the injector. To save time, get the next injector going with the .312 cylinder you just took off.
Then go back to the first injector that's already half compressed, and repeat the same procedure with the bigger cylinder marked .310. Same thing... twist/turn/push it on gently, let sit 2 mins, twist/turn/pull it off, then move the .312 onto the third injector, while you move the .310 cylinder onto the 2nd injector, etc.
Once all 3 injectors on this rail are complete, maybe go over it once more with the .310 tool to make sure they're all good, and then we'll install that rail.
Line up the injectors and push down onto each one little by little so they all go in evenly... you can probably feel them sort of pop into place, but some of them I didnt. After I got them in as far as I could by hand, they still didnt sit flush. I used the 3 bolts that hold the rail in to pull them down into place better... I put the 3 bolts in and tightened them up little by little til it was all the way down, took em out, and tightened them down again to work it into place. Fuel rail bolts are 18lb-ft.
Repeat with the second fuel rail.
Take a minute to double check that all the injectors are plugged in electrically, and the fuel rail pressure sensor is plugged in.
Now we need to get our fuel lines reinstalled.. so we're going to get the lines, put em in place, and thread them down hand tight for now just to get them lined up.
Here's where you need the crow's foot wrench, and understand torque. The torque applied by a lever (the length of your wrench) increases as the length of the lever increases. If your wrench is longer, you'll apply more torque with the same amount of force. Why does this matter? Adding the crows foot wrench to your torque wrench makes the wrench LONGER, so we need to adjust for that in setting our torque.
How to Use a Torque Wrench with a Crowfoot Wrench | TEKTON
Learn how to accurately use a torque wrench with a crowfoot wrench to measure torque. Use the included Torque Conversion Calculator.
See this link for details.. you need to measure the length of your wrench by itself, then measure how much length the crows foot adds (the angle of the wrench matters)... there's a calculator there you can enter in your specs.. it's not hard.
The torque specs as per Kia are 24lb-ft for the crossover pipe, and 26lb-ft for the line to the HP Fuel Pump... with my crows foot wrench I think I did 23 and 24, but do your own calculations, because your crows feet might be different than mine.
All that being said, 2 or 3lb-ft too much on this application probably wont make or break anything, you dont need to have it down to a science... but knowing what you're aiming for helps a lot.
Dont forget the hold down bolts on the longer fuel line, I left the PITA one on the back of the engine off, and reinstalled the one on the valve cover.
Okay - once we're torqued down on the fuel lines that's it... the scariest parts are over, we're moving to the end.. the rest is just slapping stuff together.
The Slam and Cram - Getting the rest of the junk back together
Now that the fuel rail is back together, it's just the easy, regular car fixin' stuff.
Regasket your intake manifold, make sure it's clean and dry where the gaskets are. I used a steel pipe cleaner on the bolt holes because mine were all corroded and junk. Get the intake manifold seated in place. 8 bolts in 8 holes... Make sure your coolant hoses on the front of the manifold are connected... once you get the manifold in place, it'll be a pain to get to them.
There's a sequence to the bolts we need to follow:
There's two stages to this... so we're going to tighten them in the order of A-H, and then 1-8
So, for A-H we're going to torque them to 4.3lb-ft, OR 52.1in-lb... this is where having the inch pound torque wrench will be nice. Most ftlb wrenches only go down to 10lb-ft... if yours bottoms out at 10, that's close enough... set it to 10 and go to 10.
Second stage, we're going to follow 1-8 (ignore the letters this time).
Spec here is 24lb-ft.
Hook up your coolant line to the nipple sticking out of the block, it'll be a pain to get back to this later.
Plenum time, regasket your plenum... clean and dry, etc etc. Get it slid into place, 6 bolts in 6 holes, and 2 nuts on 2 studs for a total of 8 fasteners. No sequence on this one officially, but I still went in an order mirroring the intake manifold... not two steps, just the order... follow the 1-8, just makes me feel better. Torque spec on these is 8.7ft-lbs ... again, most torque wrenches only go down to 10... 10 is close enough for this, no worries.
Once the plenum is torqued down, we're putting the bolt back in the big bracket under the throttle body, reconnect the coolant hoses under the throttle body, charge pipe back on, charge pipe fastener bolt to the block down under... sensors, getting the harnesses and pipes fastened back down to the plenum and valve cover. Dont forget the MAP sensor at the back of the engine, it's kinda hidden and easy to forget... also the brake booster hose is at the back and easy to forget.
I spent like 40 mins after I thought I was done, just checking, rechecking rerechecking all my hoses and sensors and vacuums.
I think that's it! Reconnect the battery, I had a fire extinguisher with me incase I screwed up the fuel connections.
It'll give you a long crank at first while it rebuilds fuel pressure. It might run funny at first... having the battery disconnected might have the computer modules needing to find their balance again.
Unless Im forgetting something, that's it... take it for a test drive, I recommend taking it easy for the first little while til you verify everything is holding together.. check and recheck for fuel or coolant leaks over the next couple days.. I drove gentle for the first two days because I was afraid of it.
I'll do my best with answering questions on specifics, or if I wasnt clear on something... let me know if I left anything out.
Good luck!
Said nobody in this household!
