Our Supercharged Monte Carlo Has Fuel Pressure Problems... We Upgrade the Pump AND Wires!

Because everybody who's ever worked on a car, I don't care how smart you are, you still do stuff like this. But all the people with their names on big buildings won't tell you that. Today we are fixing the fuel system on Ralph the Monte Carlo. If you remember from our dyno video, it was dropping pressure up top. We thought most likely the power feed for the fuel pump was too small, so it just could not keep up with the increased demand. So, we could do a hot wire kit. Also, the pump might be wounded because it had sucked up RTV years ago when I first installed that pump. I put too much around the thing and it got all clogged up in the sock. It's not not a good deal. So, we got all kinds of stuff from the Holly closet of goodies. Fittings needed from Earls. Um, we are going to be putting a 495 liter per hour pump in the tank in the stock stock spot stock for the tank in there. It's got all the necessary hardware and whatnot to install it with a new sock and everything which is good. And the pump in the car now is a 400. I believe that's like a old tanks inc kit and it couldn't hang. So, and the power feed we're going to be using for this is actually nitrous solenoid driver, but we're going to use it for a fuel pump. It's basically a solid state relay that's really heavy duty. It's this thing right in here. I don't know what I have used one of these for, but I know I've messed with one of these. Like, there's one of these in the Escalade somewhere. I just don't remember where it is because I have 100% used this for something somewhere. So, we got a filter and a new gauge just to make sure it's all good. So, for those of you who don't know what we're doing, basically the obviously the fuel pump is powered by electricity. The wire that feeds it power is too small. So, it's not getting enough power to the pump after the extended length of the feed wire to where it cannot keep up the RPM inside the pump to provide the fuel needed to the engine. So, we're going to show you. I believe the feed wire is this little green one right here. Not very big at all. It probably supply something fine if it was naturally aspirated, but I just completely overlooked that um when building this car 6 years ago. Do you know what we're going to do? Jack it up and start working on it. Yes, that's what we're going to do. Mhm. Do you want to practice your jacking? Yep. You want the point of contact to be in the center of the cup there. So, you're perfect. Now, this is time to explain what we're doing. So, we have that, too. Basically, what's going to happen here is we are going to use the existing wire out of that little fuse box to trigger this thingy to send power from a bigger wire good. I don't really know, but we're just going to have to deal with it. It had whatever was in it and then we put 5 gallons in it before we hit the dyno. So, it's going to be heavier than it was, but it's not going to be terrible. So, with a relay, you have a trigger pull and a feed pull. It's just having a smaller circuit basically flip a switch electronically to have a bigger wire send the power. So, the power is not going to be provided from that little itty bitty wire anymore. The itty bitty wire is just going to tell this thingy to contact internally, which will allow these bigger wires to send the power to the fuel pump instead, which gets more voltage to the pump, helps it spin faster, pump more fuel. That's the gist of what we're doing here. So, if you hear someone talk about a hot wire kit or something, that's what it is. I think they were high enough. Okay, let's get some jack stands. We already showed you how to take the tank out of this car in a previous video, which you can find on the Monte Carlo playlist. Every single car has its own playlist in order. So, if you'd like a specific one, you can find everything you want to watch right on there. So, now we have to disconnect all the crud at the top of the tank, which uh is not extremely difficult. No, it's just screws and day end lines and stuff. We got a big surprise for you guys. Okay. You know what the first thing we're going to do with this car is once we get it dyno tuned and it's ready to go. It's our favorite thing. This the thing that we've been dying so much to do in the last year. You know what that is? Go to Yellow Belly. Yep. We're going back to Yellow Belly. No, we're not. April fools. We're not going back there. Don't ask about it. Did we Did we get you? Are you mad? Do you want to unsubscribe? Is that the only reason you're here? Please unsubscribe then. If that's the only reason you're here, you don't need to be here. I mean, we're going to go race other places, but not there. So, up to you. Digest that how you will. Do you know what else April April 1st is? What is it? It's Logan's birthday. And that's also when we're planning on making this video go live. So, if you're watching, you can go on her Instagram and tell her happy birthday in the comments. It's @ Logan42 with two N's and an underscore at the end. Put it down here. But what are we going to do with this car for real? We're planning on taking it to children's vineyards. It's fine. You act like this car is just like going to just like not make it. I'm gunshy. I think that it's fine. Also, if you would like to help celebrate Logan's birthday, if you order something from staplesworks.com and leave a tip, that goes straight to her and her race car fund. Yes. Yep. Everything. We got this cool. Who doesn't want to make their own cool noises? Nope. Everybody wants cool noises, especially with boom tubes like those and those. Apparently, there's more gas in here than we thought cuz it soaked up this rag. So, we're just going to do the smart thing and yank it out real quick as I stand right in its path of destruction. So, we're in an attempt to save the rest of the gas. Yeah, this stuff is like liquid gold these days. You can't use one of these transfer pumps and not you like there's no way to do this without it looking funny. Yeah, it's just impossible. Are you like churning butter or is it like something else? Oh yeah, I'm turning butter. I'm just going to say you're churning butter because I feel like that's better than the alternative. Yeah. It's weird. Those lights on there look like they're flashing on the camera. Yeah. I don't I don't know why. Somebody who knows more about LEDs can tell us why. Was that a fart? I was trying to, but it didn't work. Oh, okay. Yeah. These are the things that you like know about each other when you like live together. You just know that that's a farting face. Even though I can't fully see your face, I just know that that's a fort face. The whole formation, like all the context clues add up to know that I'm trying to fart. You need an attitude check. You're right. We could be changing a transmission again, which No, that would really suck. And we're about to have to do it anyway. Yeah. If that transmission dies, we're not going to get a baseline number with the automatic. I don't know if we've shown that yet. We did in the dyno video, but that didn't do very well view-wise. So, I don't know how many of you have seen it or not. We are going to get a baseline dyno number with the 6L80 in there. And then we're going to swap to the American powertrain setup with the T56 Magnum and dyno it again to find out what the actual wheel horsepower difference is with everything else exactly the same. So that's what we're working for now. So what I did whenever I first sorted out which way the gasket and everything was clocked was I put a little line right here. Right there. So I knew which way to put it. I know how to use a screwdriver. You do? Yeah. Yep. But can you get that out once you get all the screws out? That's the question. Why would I not be able to get it out? I don't know. But sometimes things just don't come out when you think that they're supposed to. And then it makes you mad. I'm good at getting mad. Yes, you are. This is not ladylike. I don't know. I'm sure there'll be some stupid comics everybody likes to say things to me or about me. So, me too. Not to the extent that I deal with. You forgot one. Oh, that might Okay, I see what you mean. Well, don't be gentle or anything. Don't rip that cork. What are you talking about? The gasket. This? Yeah. Now, it looks like they're the same size, which bodess really well for us. I was concerned that the new one might not fit in there. Since it looks like the wires coming out of the pump are the same size as the wires coming out of the old pump. Um, we're just going to cut this connector off and crimp on a couple ring terminals. Use these pegs. Then we'll just run the bigger wire right to that peg. Because at least in my mind the the resistance from having a wire that's too small is acred over the distance at which it travels that makes it inadequate. You okay? Nothing. Yeah. Basically, what I'm saying is if we run the big wire all the way to the stud, having a littleer wire going to the pump is not going to be a problem because we're still going to have, you know, 14 volts at the stud instead of having 14 volts way at the front of the car and then losing it over the 18 ft of this massively long car. Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. No, you ain't. Yes, I am. I was just quoting Spongebob. Where's Spongebob quote guy? We miss you. Come back. There was this guy who would comment some random quote from Spongebob on every single video. He was funny. I don't know what happened to him. Yeah, maybe we lost his interest. You can just like repeat old quotes because you were funny and you were appreciated. Yeah, you don't have to like find something new every time. We're not that picky. Just you could say the same thing. You could say the same joke 69 times in a row and it's still funny if it's a like a good joke. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Kind of like how we watch The Office every night even though we've seen it 20 times. Way more than 20 times. I want to hear a funny story. Yes. Tell me a funny story about heat shrink. Good lesson. What did you do? Did you ruin it? No, not this time. But I did on the Escalade in the early days. When you're doing stuff inside a gas tank, you got to make sure you're using the right kind of insulation. Because one time I didn't. Oh, damn. You know what I didn't think about? What? Those like black thingies that you slide over the heat shrink. Yeah. Yeah. We should use that, shouldn't we? That's exactly what I'm going to get to. I did use those. I soldered a connection on the fuel pump in the Escalade back when it had this old engine in it in like 2016. First time I ever did anything with a fuel pump in a bucket. And I covered my solder joint with that black heat shrink. I thought it was fine. It was not fine. The gasoline ate it. It made it swell and the heat shrink slid down the wires exposing the power and the ground which the bare parts of the solder were right next to each other. So I launched at the track, wires touched and blew the fuse dead in the water. Oh wow. Yep. So I had to take it back apart and then redo it with I think it was like marine grade uh heat shrink like butt connectors with marine grade heat shrink which were like the clearish kind. I don't know if these particular ones are but in this case there's no danger of them coming into contact with each other if the insulation were to go away. So we're not worried about it. But so you know something to learn. Funny story. Yeah. Funny story. I had to get dragged off the track by a quad and wait for Triple A until 3 in the morning. Quad could drag that. Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, it was. It was a big one. They didn't mess around at Pittsburgh. Like it wasn't like an actual quad. It was like a big utility quad. Yeah. Yeah. Then I had to wait until 3:00 a.m. for TripleA to come get me cuz that was before before I owned a trailer or a truck. This was I feel like I remember that partially, but there's like too many stories of you having to get hauled off. Yeah, there's a lot. This was the time where I called them and I was like, "Hey, if I leave the keys somewhere, can you just take it?" Yes. Yeah. Because the AAA driver I knew you. Yeah. The AAA driver whenever the Monte Carlo dropped a valve trying to go to the track, that guy was cool and he just went and dropped it off at my garage uh without us so we could go eat. And whenever I talked to him, um, I gave him the address where to drop it off and he's like, "Wait, are you the guy with that Monte Carlo?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Oh, yeah. I know where we're going. You can like hide the keys somewhere. You don't got to wait for me." And I was like, "Ah, awesome." So, we went home and at some point, I don't know, 4, 5, 6 a.m., he dropped it off and it was fine. But yeah, anyway, back to what we're doing. Story time. Hope you learned something or laughed, cried, anything like that. So, the problem we're running into now is the lung port on the new pump is longer than the old one and the tank is not very deep. So, when we put this when we put it in here, that plastic piece is hitting the base as is that one. It was installed all the way in and it does not fit the whole end of the tank without bottoming out. And we don't even have the sock on there yet. So, what we're going to do is we're going to trim the tube to be the same height as the other pump and then put it back in and then we should be okay. So, let's find a way to cut this thing. Well, been messing with this for quite a while now. I think I finally got it figured out. I had to trim one lip off of this port like on the other side so it's shorter now so the pump could sit down farther. I had to melt the end a little bit and push it out to make a like a little barb. And I wanted to use those types of clamps cuz they're better, but they kept sliding up because they didn't have any bite. Like I tighten it and end up sliding up here. So I had to use the worm ones. And if they come apart in a couple years or whatever, it'll just be like that, I guess. Point being, just start with the Holly tank or start with a tank that uh is not this one. I guess if you're got a tank sync setup and you want to go fast, I would use something else, but I already got this one. So, we're going to make it work. We got the new sock on there. We can stick it in. Hopefully, it fits and it's all good. So, we can get to doing the wiring. And I just remembered that when I used one of these before, it's on the bump button in the Escalade. That's That's why I am familiar with this. I just had that realization last night and figured I would share. Logan is going to wire this all by herself without my help. I helped a little bit on the fans, but I'm going to help less this time. There's It's really simple. What did you do on the fans? I helped you um You just labeled it and you had to help me crimp it. Also, I think we found a solution to our pump depth issue. You think? I think. Haven't tried it yet, but I think this is about as good as it's going to get. We got very lucky in that Rob has all kinds of CNC stuff. That's what he does for a living. So I went over there and said, "You have like a piece of aluminum like/ inch thick I can make a spacer with." Cuz in my mind, I thought we were just going to, you know, have a square, drill some holes in it, whole saw the middle out, and just bolt it on there. And he's like, I could make this in the CNC faster than you could do it by hand. I'll just draw it out on CAD real quick. So like, okay. We left to get some longer bolts. And we came back. He had it all ready to go and uh put the GoPro in there so you could see it happen which you watch right Yeah. that pretty cool, huh? Now we have this perfectly perfect spacer, which should be perfect. Did I say that already? I don't know. And what that's going to do is get the pump sock farther from the bottom of the tank so it doesn't starve out. And apparently if you go on the tanks website now it says uh for pumps bigger than 255 L per hour don't use this tank cuz it doesn't fit. Wow. That information would have been great to have in 2017 when I bought that and they sold all that to me. But I guess everybody learns lessons the hard way. At least they have a solution now. But maybe we have found one for existing guys so you won't have to change your entire tank. I don't know. We will see. Well, like after you crimp it, you like pull on it to make sure that you actually did a good job. So, you know, it's not going to like have a problem later. That's not how you said it to me, though. Well, cuz I was being goofy cuz it was just you. Yeah, be goofy. No, goofy is fun. Got to pull on it nice and hard. You can hold it with the crimper before you squeeze it and like make sure it's in there all the way because some people will mess up the butt connector by squeezing it when it's not in there all the way and it will just come out. Leave a comment if you ever done that before many times. Well, you guys wanted the reel, you're getting the reel here. Turns out most of what we just did wiring-wise up in the front of the car has to be redone because they did not know that that NOS solid state relay is ground activated, not power activated cuz it was getting power at the fuel pump even with the key off. I'm like, that's weird. Shouldn't do that. Checked the wires. Didn't make any sense. So did some more research, figured out that it's ground triggered for use. Like in Holly systems, they have ground outputs. So that's normal to hook up. But on a factory GM ECU, most things are outputed with 12 volts like this fuel this fuel pump. Um there's nothing to really pull from that's ground activated. So we're just going to switch it to this this uh MSD high current solid state relay. Put these ports in there. Find somewhere to mount it. Not exactly sure. I've never used anything this intense looking before. We almost have this thing hooked back up. In my idiocy while crimping one wire, I caught another one because see the crimper here where you put the terminal right in there. The cutter parts right after that. So, I just went, "Oh, yeah. Good job. I crimped it." Woohoo! And then I realized I got the one right behind it. Now Logan's fixing it because it made me mad. And if you see something in my mouth, that's uh one of those can of dips things we talked about before. They came out with a new peach flavor and it's really good. And tastes like a peach balini, like alcoholic beverage. It kind of I don't know what that is, but I'll take your word for it. I like it. I like it. And when it's late at night and things are frustrated, I put it in our mouth. I feel better. Ow. I don't know. Maybe it's cuz it tastes good. I'm not sure. But we like it. Sorry I ruined that. That's okay. I burned my hole. The hole in my thumb. Oh, it's like really dirty, too. It's gross. I broke the Swiffer in half. You what? I broke the Swiffer in half. Yeah, you were scrubbing hardcore and broke the aluminum pole and Yeah, and it like took a chunk out of the middle of my thumb like a week ago. You okay? I don't know what's down my butt, but it hurt. Was it the Oh, it wasn't one of those probably. Do you want one? Authentic endorsement. You like these things. Use code stapleton42 at checkout to save on your order. Wow. Is it turned? Yeah. Am I supposed to turn it more? No. I think maybe you forgot to hook something up. Trials and tribulations. Wait, leave it turned for a second. Apparently, the ECU doesn't prime the fuel pump every time you turn the key. I was under the impression that it did even though I I know that it doesn't. I just assumed that it would like you know you turn the key on, key comes on like you test for key power and I'm like messing with this thing for god 25 minutes. How long have we been doing this? I don't know. I'm not keeping track of time. too long long time that I'm losing my mind because it wasn't until…