Yesterday I traded out the lower portion of my Impreza's air filter box because the one for the EJ18 had a roughly two inch hole to pull air through from the fender. I happened to have one from a Legacy or Outback kicking around, and the fender hole is like three and a half inches. Threw that in, and immediately noticed the car feels more solid. Can't really say faster, but it seems more willing to go when I'm just taking it easy and not driving aggressively. Unfortunately my cruising and light throttle AFR's were now around 15.2/15.3!
Enter this guy:
I got a steal of a deal on this genuine Walbro 255 from Flat4awd. Can't thank you enough!
I figured what's the worst that could happen? Either I'll be running too rich or nothing will really change. Screw it, in it goes. I'll just yank these seats out and OH GREAT.
Just my luck haha, you can hardly tell that's SUPPOSED to be a Philips head screw. Well I'd prefer not to drill it out if I don't have to, so I tried grinding a slot in it.
Ok, that came out pretty well... I'll just grab this bigass flathead and... gently now, easy does it...
Success! :banana:
I think a big part of this technique working lies in the details. You wanna grind a deep enough slot to grab with the flathead, but you don't want to go all the way through the screw/bolt head and slice it in half. I also put the flathead in the slot and then gave it a few firm taps with a hammer to try and 'seat' it in there and also to 'break' loose the threads. Don't break the head off though!
******* rodents.
From here on it was pretty straightforward. The filter sock thing that came with the Walbro sits at a 90 degree angle to the pump, whereas the stock one is only 45 degrees out. This is because the pump itself sits at a 45, and allows the filter sock to lay flat in the tank. I just reused the stocker for now. It's a little dirty outside, but inside is clean so I'm okay with it until I find a new one (hint hint cough cough Flat4awd).
Here's the Walbro all mounted up with the stock sock. There's the stock fuel pump next to it with the TINY aftermarket sock. Even though the pumps are sitting at different angles, you can still kinda tell that the aftermarket sock wouldn't work. My estimate is fuel starvation with around an eighth of a tank left!
This isn't the first fuel pump I've replace, but I'm always a little thrown by those open electrical connections SUBMERGED IN FUEL. Just kinda goes against all that stuff I was taught about electricity and fluids/gasoline and ignition sources... oh well.
After reinstalling the fuel pump assembly, I just used my remote starter from a safe distance to test it out
No worries, everything works great... wait what's that sound? Holy crap this pump is LOUD! Oh well, I listen to loud music anywho, and nothing is louder than my tires right now.
AFR's are now mid 14's when cruising/light throttle. I'm good with that. Also noticed a bit more pep. Could be placebo, but I really think I improved my cars drive-ability!
Not the fuel economy though.