More driving, less fixing

 So I took the injector loom off - the injectors themselves checked out fine. I took the plastic injector plug case off:

and after unwrapping the loom tape, none of the wires dropped out of the the butt connectors, which is what normally happens when I usually unwrap my wiring. I did a continuity check of the earth's to each plug and they were fine, as were the common signal wires. But I couldn't easily test the signals from the ECU.

I really didn't want to redo all the wires - that really needs to go back to the ECU plug, remove numerous panels to get to the loom, unwrap it all and then rewire it, having to reverse engineer it etc. That could take weeks at the pace I work, with no guarantee it would be any better.

So I just put it all back together and went for a drive... I've decided to be like an ostrich for now and just suffer the difficult starts.

Procrastination is a bad thing

 So the new fuel regulator arrived, popped it on and...no damn difference. Wonderful...strictly, I should replace the HP pump now but that sounds fine and I can see its got good pressure (clear filter was empty after replaced the regulator, filled up instantly when HP pump came on). 

The time has come to face the facts; my wiring skills have always been crap and almost the last part of my car that has NOT been rewired are the injectors. A long time ago, I bought an OEM fuel injector loom and used that to wire the injectors. This was early in my build when I was even more inept than I am now and I've always worried they would come back to haunt me. Added to this, there is a recent post on a forum of someone having the same problems as me and he has solved it by rewiring the injector plugs.

So, I need to bite the bullet and try this. A simple first test is just to check the injector resistance - maybe one of my injectors is dead? Although I'd expect more severe symptoms if that was the case....

More fun and games, just as the weather is improving and lockdown is almost over.

The Pressure is Off

Well, maybe...a suggestion from Jon (ex-Emerald guy) was that my issue is fuel pressure, or lack of. Two possible candidates are the HP fuel pump and the fuel pressure regulator.

Based on the fact that I can hear the HP pump and it sounds OK, I thought I'd try change the regulator first. Rather than just get a new OEM Ford job, I went for an £80 adjustable regulator, which also includes a take-off to fit a fuel pressure gauge (£20). My thinking was that, with the gauge, I can then tell what the pressure is and if it is still low, I'll know it's not the regulator.

So, bought all this and then sat there, staring at my fuel rail, thinking, "how the Hell does this go on?". The answer, eventually, is, it doesn't!!! The damn thing just has a pipe fitting but I need an adaptor to fit on the end of the Ford fuel rail. The OEM regulator has this adaptor moulded on to it (the piece with the holes in it in the pic below), so I cannot re-use that:

And does anyone do a separate adaptor for Ford? Nope. I ordered the closest thing I could find in the desperate hope it might fit but it finally arrived from China (after 3 weeks) and it doesn't fit.

So that's £100 down the drain - I've just ordered a new OEM Ford regulator; thankfully, only £25.

I'm on holiday next week when it should arrive, so I'll fit it on my return and pray this fixes my issue.