Cannot get EFI engine running smoothly after water in tank.

R

Raisedonadeere

Member
Ran out of fuel, and refueled with a lot of water. Went through draining tank, purging including filter change, poured in a bottle of HEET and now no signs of water but Engine sometimes will start and idle, and occasionally exabits a burst of power but mostly loses power, sputtering and a hint of backfire as engine is running at about 2/3 full rpm.

I have zero experience with servicing fuel injected engines. I have heard that water will destroy injectors due to heat causing a steam flash at the injector tip, but it seems that would only be with direct injection. My injector is in the air intake, so it does not get hot.

I am mostly asking for scenarios with recovering from water in fuel injected engines. I have helped several people who did this to carbureted engines, and once you get a sufficient purge it will work itself out in short order and power fully recovers.
 
A full bottle sounds like a lot. I believe the recommended dosage is a bottle to 20 gallons. Have you flushed the tank after the heet?
 
If a little is good more is better?

Way too much HEET additive in the tank just creates similar running problems.

I normally recommend 90% rubbing alcohol because it is a petroleum-based product.
 
Dude, flush the tank out with gasoline only. Stop it with all the snake oils. More and more alcohols (Heet) will only falter the proper air/fuel ratio. No wonder it will not start and run with an over treated dose of snake oil HEET. Blow all the lines out with shop air.

If it doesn't run proper you still have water in there or too much alcohol. This ain't the space program people.........

This engine just like all the rest of them are NOT made to run on alcohol of any kind. They can "tolerate" Ethanol junk fuels but run best meaning most HP and mileage on pure unleaded gasoline. None of these engine manufacturers will say unleaded only as they will miss out on selling engines to those that can't get pure gas.
 
Thanks for the wake up.

Kind of a duh moment, I was treating the HEET like it was diesel additive, does no harm to up the concentration, however a whole bottle in a gallon or two in the tank still would not be good though. I think just about any idiot would at least think that concentration would mess up the fuel ratios. I quickly read treats up to 20 gallons, read any further and dumped it in. Some guy at the counter piped up I should buy two bottles.

I called a friend today who works on cars to ask what the recovery process was for these small engines from waterlogged fuel, and he said that in high concentrations HEET will destroy the injector tips.

It now has fresh gas after siphoning the tank with the thing over on its side to allow reaching the lowest point in the tank. Still runs as I initially described. Injector is easy to replace so that is my next step along with a new spark plug while I am at it.
 
You still have to get the proper fuel pressure AND fuel, to you injector.

How much fuel pressure do you have and how much are you SUPPOSED to have?
 
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