SOLVED - Fuel delivery after broken fuel line - won’t start

[sdavidson0316]

I was driving on the interstate yesterday and ended up on the side of the road dead and needing a tow home. I was off and on the throttle, just enjoying the acceleration occasionally. On one hard pull I felt a hesitation from the engine at high RPMs, but the car continued to run. A little later I smelled some fuel so my senses started to heighten quickly! About the time I finished processing what could be going on, the car started to decelerate and I found myself on the side of the road.

No CELs or DTCs that I’ve found yet, but I’m going to look deeper today.

When I opened the hood I found out that one of the connectors in my fuel system had popped loose (red circle). Not out, but loose. It was definitely allowing some fuel to pass by, probably a light spray at WOT. The connector is at the rear of the engine where the high pressure line comes across (see photo). I have a Visconti ethanol sensor and its associated fuel line adapters, all of which have been driven probably a hundred miles since refitting with the newest adapters.

*Note that the tune setup is very old and tested. I have no reason to believe that there is anything wrong with the tune setup.

I reseated all of the adapters and ensured they were locked into place, but the car just won’t start anymore. It acts like it’s not getting any fuel at all, and from what I see it’s not getting any.

Initially I thought maybe it could be an airlock in the fuel system, so I tried to relieve the pressure a few times. Didn’t help.

Now that I have the car back in my garage, what can I try? I’m pretty good with wrenching but fairly new to the B58

Photo reference: red is the connector that came loose, green are the other two that remained in place.

TIA for the assistance.

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[tracer bullet]

I know that there's a fuel bleed option in ISTA which of course none of us normally have. Something like BImmerlink could have it as well? It would be worth a look.

It wouldn't seem that you lost enough fuel or have enough air introduced for that to prevent a start after a few tries. A couple of self primes getting into the car or trying to start it would normally be enough. But air seems like a likely culprit so I'd suggest to keep going with that for now. Maybe a couple more start attempts would be enough.

There's of course always checking for codes, even ones that don't trigger a light, but it would seem that the loose line is the only thing that actually changed and the issues is related to that, other codes are unlikely.

 

[sdavidson0316]

So I finally got the car towed home and I still can’t get it to start. It is definitely a fuel issue, and I do not have any DTCs of any kind. It just won’t start despite repeated attempts.

Can anyone tell me how to get some fuel in the line?? Surely there’s something obvious that I am missing.

 

[razorlab]

What did you replace the line with? The same line? Did you check for obstructions?

I've had the whole fuel system in the engine bay apart. Fuel rails off, injectors out, HPFP out.. and the car started just fine after putting it all back together after a couple cranks that pressurized everything I took off.

 

[sdavidson0316]

Was replaced with components from Visconti to install the ethanol sensor. Just an adaptor and the sensor.

It ran with those in place for a few days, so it shouldn’t be that.

 

[tracer bullet]

It ran with those in place for a few days, so it shouldn’t be that.

Generically speaking, don't rule out anything at all. Start with obvious stuff and when that doesn't work move to the less obvious stuff to be sure you're thorough, including anything that worked for a few days. Apparently everything worked for a few days, then didn't, and so it's all suspect at this point.

 

[Thraxbert]

Agree. Even a bone dry fuel system shouldn't take more than a couple cranks. Reading all of the posts in this thread, I'm suspicious of things like:

How faithfully was the BCM tap executed for that ethanol kit? Are there any intermittent connectivity issues? Are you 100% incontrovertibly certain?

How are the fuel injector and fuel pump fuses?

Has OP disconnected the LPFP fuel line from the HPFP and cranked the engine? Put the hose into a fuel container and see if anything comes out. This will verify pump behavior.

 

[sdavidson0316]

I just pulled all the lines and sure enough it is not getting any fuel through the main line that comes in via the rear of the driver’s side of the engine. .

I’ve checked all the fuses related to fuel and engine in the rear fuse compartment. and they all test out exactly as they should. (Something like 4 @ 5a and 1 @ 30a)

I’m going to add some fuel and see if that helps. Maybe because of the way it happened, it’s out and doesn’t know it. I know that’s stupid, but I’m just trying things.

It seems to me that if the fuel pump were not working that it would have some sort of DTC, right?

 

[sdavidson0316]

Ok, so I’m a little embarrased on this, but actually I am not embarrassed at all because I didn’t have a way to know without guessing.

It turns out that the car was out of gas. I had absolutely no way of knowing this because the gas gauge still said that I had three bars of gas, not even on reserve. I put a gallon of gas in it and the minute I touched the button, it immediately started pumping gas out of the fuel line.

I’m really not sure why the gas gauge did not understand that I was out of gas, but that was the core of the problem. My gas gauge has always been accurate in the past, so this had to be something related to the particular series of event events that happened.

Hopefully someone in the future can see this post and start with that even though it wasn’t giving me information from the car.

Thank you all for your assistance!

 

[itzTang]

Ok, so I’m a little embarrased on this, but actually I am not embarrassed at all because I didn’t have a way to know without guessing.

It turns out that the car was out of gas. I had absolutely no way of knowing this because the gas gauge still said that I had three bars of gas, not even on reserve. I put a gallon of gas in it and the minute I touched the button, it immediately started pumping gas out of the fuel line.

I’m really not sure why the gas gauge did not understand that I was out of gas, but that was the core of the problem. My gas gauge has always been accurate in the past, so this had to be something related to the particular series of event events that happened.

Hopefully someone in the future can see this post and start with that even though it wasn’t giving me information from the car.

Thank you all for your assistance!

Hopefully the sending unit is ok. if its empty shouldnt be reading 3 bars. might want to monitor that issue

 

[sdavidson0316]

Hopefully the sending unit is ok. if its empty shouldnt be reading 3 bars. might want to monitor that issue

I definitely will be! FWIW the moment the engine turned over the gauge immediately registered as empty and threw the reserve light on, and when I went to fill it up, it went to 100%.

I don’t know enough yet about these electronics to explain it, but it certainly seems like it only wants to freshly read the level when the engine is running.

 

[Thraxbert]

I believe I just had this happen to me.

Parked the car at the airport last week with 2 bars of fuel. Started it up after coming home, still 2 bars of fuel. Car died just short of the toll booths to exit airport parking, perhaps 500ft of driving? Car wouldn't start, had fuel pressure codes, car ran really rough before giving up. Got a tow home. I assumed the worst because I had 2 bars of fuel and no fuel pressure. Not a great combo at midnight on a Friday.

Then I found this thread. Gave the car 2 gallons of gas as this was BY FAR the easiest diagnostic to try. What do you know? Runs fine! No codes! No problems!

So it looks like the sender is broken, stuck on something, or just stuck somehow. I truly hate going into the gas tank and am not looking forward to doing this shit a third time.

But, yeah, I'm a dude that ran out of fuel and the car said I still had ~¼ tank.

 

[sdavidson0316]

Glad you found this. Not only did it save you some time, but it made me feel slightly less dumb!

Maybe it is a quirk of the fuel system.

 

[Thraxbert]

Glad you found this. Not only did it save you some time, but it made me feel slightly less dumb!

Maybe it is a quirk of the fuel system.

Am I correct to understand, from your post, that this issue was self-resolving? As in: empty tank showing 3 bars add a little gas level jumps to proper reading on dash?

 

[Eastwood]

Did you guys check the Supra app for how much fuel/range you have left? Did it match the cars fuel gauge/range?

One of the last updates a few weeks ago kinda messed up the range. I'd have like 5 gallons and the range on the app would say 70 miles, while the range on the car would be much higher in the range of what it normally is for that fuel level.

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