Fuel/Air filtering idea, It's in and Now Testing.

Petah812 · **Posted:** Fri Mar 30, 2012 8:17 am

OK Here's the photos and discription of my setup and pipe work.

Everyone has there own preferance to what parts they use and how they want to plumb it, so haven't started a parts lisl.
Everything here apart from the bracket can be gotten for just over $200 AUD.
If your handy with and angle grinder, drill, hammer and an anvil of sorts, you can make the bracket.
Sorry i didn't make a template, i just started cutting and bending. Ended up just a little short for the bottom leg, so bolted a bit on.

This is the original filter.

First off I had to remove the accelerator bellcrank and reposition it onto the fan shroud.
This it Australian import model, right hand drive.

Fabricate a new twin fuel filter bracket and test fitting.

Rolling the edges to strength it.

Fitting bracket.

Fitting the filters.

Fitting pressure gauge 0-60 kpa 0-8.7 psi
and needle valve for testing and setting flow or back pressure to injector pump.

Testing Silverline Facet copy, had an elbow, which i changed to straight tail after thinking it was causing a flow resriction.

After testing a genuine Facet, with an elbow on discharge, I fitted a Hansa Facet copy at a 45deg angle for air purging.
The Hansa has the best flow sofar.

I haven't connected the line from the needle valve to the fuel return line yet, as i am doing flow and pressure testing first.

How all this is connected:
First off fuel is now pumped from the tank to the original filter.
From the original filter it gos into the outlet of the second filter.
This is to allow the filter media to act as a coalizer for any tiny bubbles.
From the inlet of the second filter it goes to the injector pump.

The bubbles that collect in the glass bowl are pushed out of the water drain that is fitted with an elbow.
From this elbow it goes to a T with a pressure gauge at one end, from the T to a needle valve and from the valve to another T in the return line to fuel tank.

With this system any air drawn up from the tank or fittings that may get loose or leaking filter housing goes into the glass bowl and back to the fuel tank. Should be easier to see leaks after the pump with engine off and electric pump on with valve closed.

Now for problem i am having.
The Facet FEP12SV, same specs as 40109 pump that i have tested, is rated at 132.5 Lt/hour thats 2.2Lt/min open flow and a pressure of 4 to 7 psi, I assume closed valve.
What i am measuring is no where near that, even with the friction losses in the tubing.
With engine off and valve open, no pressure showing on the gauge. The flow is only at best 250ml/min. And closed valve pressure of 2.5 psi.
I have now tried 3 different make pumps with the same ratings. The best i have gotten is from the Hansa 400ml/min and 3.5 psi.

There is no restriction in the tubing from the tank to the needle valve, as i can easly hand pump the primer and get a flow of over 1lt/min with the engine off, and a closed valve pressure off the dial.
So the flow is not going through to the return line while testing pump flows, because i can get over 8 psi showing on the gauge with only a few pumps of the primer. Best pump pressure has been only 3.5 psi.

With the engine running and the pump on, it just keeps up with the flow with the needle valve open. No flow past the valve.
So this suggests that the flow used by the engine and return to the tank at idle is about 400ml/min, this is on a 2.5Lt KJ.
If i hand pump while running the Hansa pump and engine running, i can maintain a pressure of 6 psi with valve closed.

So i need a pump with higher ratings to get a flow back to the tank from the valve at full throtle without spending big dollars.
I'll try and sort something out tomorrow.

Regards
Peter

Petah812 · **Posted:** Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:55 pm

G'day all
Wont have a pump till Tuesday. Supplier is getting me a higher pressure pump with a bit more flow.
So I've started fitting snorkel, when that's on I'll mod the fan shroud and fit timing belt and pulleys. Just ticked over 190k km not a 100% sure the previous owner did the belt. Must have or i would be rebuilding by now. It looks good from what i can see through gap with top 5 bolts out.

Regards
Peter

Petah812 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:52 am

G'day all
Iv'e been a bit busy before i went on holiday.
While waiting for the Facet 50107 pump. I fitted a snorkel, timing belt and modified the fan shroud.

I definatly needed to do the timing belt.

And finely the pump.

Wiring is to the ASD relay, not the best spot but it works for the time being.

This is my camping setup and onsite 24 hours after pump install.

OK it's all working now.
After testing and before going on holiday. I have found that the specs for the Facet pumps are for petrol not diesel, you need to allmost half the pressure output and flow is way down.
The Facet 50107 that i got has 5/16 barbed fittings molded into the plastic housing and is rated for 7 to 10 psi. That is with the outlet closed ( closed valve) and the pump level with the fuel and as close to the tank as possible.

The higher you mount a pump from the source the less pressure and flow your going to get from it.
All pumps are more efficiant the closer they are to the source.

The best flow i got with the engine off was 800ml/min(0.211 US gal/min) 12.68 US gal/h and with the engine idling and also reving to 3000rpm was 600ml/min (0.158 US gal/min) 9.5 US gal/h. Thats a lot less than 34 gal/h listed for the 60107 that has replaced the 50107. I think i got old stock and paid too much for it, but i needed it now.
It's working for me and at the rite pressure and flow.

This is what pressure i got closed valve with engine off.

This is with valve open with engine off.

This is valve closed engine idling.

And valve open with engine idling and upto 3000rpm. 2.5lt CRD

I am very happy with the setup atm.
As you can see from my camping setup, i am full up. Haven't weigh it yet.
My fuel economy has gone from 23 to 23.5mpg on a 1 1/2 tank trip with a lot of mountains.
How much of that i can attibute to the snorkel and tb i don't know.
Only done 1/2 a tank with nothing in or on the KJ sofar so don't know what i'll get.

Most people have noticed that it is smoother and quieter at idle, it definatly driver better.
I now know for a fact that i'm not getting air in my fuel.

Regards
Peter

turbobill · **Posted:** Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:38 pm

Nice work on the setup. There is something here for all of us to learn from, thanks for the great documentation and instrumentation. i know my lift pump setup is not optimum but my CRD ran MUCH better after install. I believe the pump is running at zero output pressure when the engine is running, just judging by the sound the pump makes when the engine is off and when it is idling. When the engine is off I have a deep pump sound, when idling any hint of pump sound goes to higher pitched light vibration sound so I know the load is off the pump.

Thanks again for the great documentation and instrumentation.

Petah812 · **Posted:** Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:30 pm

Thanks Turbobill.
Im slowly setting this up for longer touring trips with hopefully more reliability.
Having a gauge and a valve is the only way to know what your lift pump is doing, anything less is only a guess.
Also helps in knowing if the prefilter at the lift pump needs changing.
Im on my 2nd tank full after taking all the camping gear out and off, sofar 25.64mpg.
Ive checked my trip meter with gps and hwy test markers and its spot on.
Im also running an app on my android phone to track fuel use since i got the KJ.
Its called Fuellog, its the easiest one i have found to input data.

The above mileage may be a bit out as the fill up before tip i stopped at the foam due to being in a hurry.
I'll need to do that one again.

Side note, Im surprised how accurate these gps units are in calculating distance and time of arrival.
Over a 110 Km one way trip it was within 50m and 3min of my departure setting.

Regards
Peter

Petah812 · **Posted:** Tue May 08, 2012 12:22 am

I'm up to third tank full, this time at normal driving and speed limits, no camping gear. 24.54 US mpg.
With fill up to the rim start and finish, and accurate distances measured. 60km traveled daily, 4 to 6 days a week.

My average before air/fuel filter, snorkel and timing belt was approx 22.5 mpg for the previous 12 months.
I've read that snorkel adds approx 0.3 mpg.
I'm not sure if tb had any effect, fuel filter was dirty but can't qualify how much difference it would have made ( i'm not putting it back in to find out).

So approx 2 mpg improvement looks good to me.
I can only attribute that to removing the air out of MY system by a combination of lift pump, new fuel filter and air/fuel filter setup.

This is on my 2002 2.5Lt CRD, Others may not get the same amount, or possibly better improvement.
These tests have only been on tar roads and some smoothish dirt roads while camping.

My gut feeling is, a bigger improvement would be found on long distance corrugated outback roads, where the fuel would be in a constant agitation/aeration state. I may test that someday.

Hope this is of some help to others.

Regards
Peter

Fuel/Air filtering idea, It's in and Now Testing.

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