Did pumps die or were they killed?

jlauth

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I'm also interested in this. I just installed my complete Fore kit with 405 pumps, which were said to be compatible with E-85 by Fore, but now I am hearing differently from Fore.

Basically this weekend at a tuning session with Kurgan, a cobra with 405 pumps that had been in the car for a year...started losing fuel pressure up top. That night the pumps were pulled and the hat and what not was very corroded and the prefilters were full of black gunk.

There are three possible causes in my opinion.
1. Bad pump gas from a station that didnt prepare the pump to be E85 compatible
2. The pumps are being eaten causing the black gunk
3. the lines...(but im not thinking its the lines, as he is using the Aeroquip AQP, however i did see a similar thread to this one where th actual culprit wasn't exposed and the line was sectioned and seemed to rub black/gray on to a white towel)

I am only running barrel fuel so i am removing the bad gas from the equation...so i will check my pumps, filter, and lines after a few hundred miles and report back.
 

InvisibleBlade

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Checked filter after recently installing 465 pumps and 250 miles of use...

Looks like your problem is solved!
 

gaspasr

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I have a aeromotive filter and their SS element is 40 micron. The division x element is not compatible. Once I check my paper filter a few times, I will then switch if the black gunk is gone.
 

gaspasr

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another 200 miles and still looking pretty clean:banana:....going to a SS filter now. Been using the same e85 station throughout this time.
 

Senkak

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I had another 400 starting to fail and making a weird noises.
Swapped out for 465s last weekend.
Filters arrived yesterday and I will report back how they look.
The first time I swapped the filters they looked fine.
 

gaspasr

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Keep us posted. You mentioned weird noises? When my 400s were going out...they were loud. After I swapped to the 465s I couldn't believe how quiet the pumps should be.
 

Senkak

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Keep us posted. You mentioned weird noises? When my 400s were going out...they were loud. After I swapped to the 465s I couldn't believe how quiet the pumps should be.

One of my pumps was making a low pitch moan.
Sound of death I guess.
I would unplug both fuses and run the individually to make sure each was working.
Soon after I installed them they sounded completely different.

You are correct about the 465s.
They are much quieter than the 400s.

One interesting fun fact about how much the 400s pump.
We had my car on the dyno at PRI for demo purposes.
My would start to lean out over 5000 at more than 700hp.
This was on one pump and how I discovered I had a failed pump.
These things flow a lot of fuel. When they work. LOL!
 

Senkak

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Sure glad I decided to install new filters after 465 pump install.
I have purchased E85 from one station only.
Fillters are nasty and the black residue is hard to wipe off my hands.
Hopefully the filters didnt allow any goo through.
Walbro 400 pump guts??

photo-1_zps3349b5e5.jpg


photo2-1_zps9e3643dc.jpg
 

gaspasr

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They look like mine. Residue too. I had different theories about my pump failures but I think I'm leaning more to pump incompatibility w e85. I'm still going to the same station. I didn't install the 400s thus not sure if they were bottoming out in the tank and "starving". If yours were installed correctly then I know my answer. I did install paper elements to filter to the smallest and dropped in a can of seafoam.

Haven't heard of anyone blowing up an engine due to a 400 failure. I'm surprised.
 

Senkak

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They look like mine. Residue too. I had different theories about my pump failures but I think I'm leaning more to pump incompatibility w e85. I'm still going to the same station. I didn't install the 400s thus not sure if they were bottoming out in the tank and "starving". If yours were installed correctly then I know my answer. I did install paper elements to filter to the smallest and dropped in a can of seafoam.

Haven't heard of anyone blowing up an engine due to a 400 failure. I'm surprised.

The 400s were definitely installed as per instructions.
My conclusion, like yours is they are failing due to incompatibility with e85.

As the Walbro/TI tech told me "it is not a matter of IF but WHEN they will fail and they will fail quickly".

There are some folks on here who rarely drive their cars and have not had any failures. I guess the more you run the fuel the more damage is done.
 

04SilverSerpent

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I'm running the walbro gss 342's now...I was running the lethal 340's and my filters looked exactly the same as what yours did and they failed on me. I'm curious if the 342's will fail in e85 or not like the 405's are failing? Since switching to regular 93, I haven't had any issues so I know my pumps were not bottoming out....I put around 60 miles a day on the car roundtrip to work and back. I would hate to start running e85 again and these fail as well. I would love to run the 465's but I don't think the original fore triple hat is compatible.
 
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Senkak

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I'm running the walbro gss 342's now...I was running the lethal 340's and my filters looked exactly the same as what yours did and they failed on me. I'm curious if the 342's will fail in e85 or not like the 405's are failing? Since switching to regular 93, I haven't had any issues so I know my pumps were not bottoming out....I put around 60 miles a day on the car roundtrip to work and back. I would hate to start running e85 again and these fail as well. I would love to run the 465's but I don't think the original fore triple hat is compatible.

The 465s are dimensionally the same as the 400s except the nipple is longer.
It requires about 1/4" to be trimmed off. Very easy to do.
If the Fore hat is able to fit the 400s(I believe it is) then the 465s will fit.
A call to Justin would be a good idea to verify.
 
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465's now are making noise on me, they hadn't made much noise until now. 417 miles on them so far. Fuel pressure is still good so we will see what happens. I'm going to be really pissed off if these take a shit on me. I had to eat the 400's already that lethal told me were good for E85. My car runs on e85 only and I always use the same gas station.
 
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nanastymach1

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Yea this is bull shit my pumps and my buddies car with the twin 400"s that lethal sold us saying they were good for e85 went out today....I've been noticing my car going lean in boost and we found out fuel pressure is dropping,fuel filter was black yesterday=. twin 405"s are crap

I'm going to try the 465 and pray
 

Senkak

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Yea this is bull shit my pumps and my buddies car with the twin 400"s that lethal sold us saying they were good for e85 went out today....I've been noticing my car going lean in boost and we found out fuel pressure is dropping,fuel filter was black yesterday=. twin 405"s are crap

I'm going to try the 465 and pray

I don't blame Lethal.
They were just passing on the info provided by Walbro/TI
Do a search back when the 400s were first released.
"Compatable with all fuels"
 

gaspasr

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465's now are making noise on me, they hadn't made much noise until now. 417 miles on them so far. Fuel pressure is still good so we will see what happens. I'm going to be really pissed off if these take a shit on me. I had to eat the 400's already that lethal told me were good for E85. My car runs on e85 only and I always use the same gas station.

Any updates?
 

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