Vapor Lock

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healeyt

Vapor Lock

Post by healeyt »

We added a K&N filter and a new muffler to our 1991 President hoping to improve our power going up hills. We live near a 7% grade or better and have to take it to get anywhere north of where we live on the Central Coast of California. Being pretty cocky with our new improvements we drove to Donner Lake near Lake Tahoe several weeks ago. It was a hot day. We were pulling our 1996 Honda Accord for the first time. When we got to about 6000 feet the engive coughed and sputtered a couple of times and that was that. We had to sit on the side of the road and wait for the tow truck. When he arrived about an hour and a half latter, don't you know she started right up for him. He thought that we had had a vapor lock. Later we read about a very similar situation in an RV magazine.

What suggestions can you make? We could unhook the car when going up hills but that seems somewhat inconvenient.

We have an E350 chassis and I believe we have a 460 engine. I have read that Born Frees are quite strong. Should we prepare ourselves for this again? Or could it just have been our bad luck?

Thanks, Theresa
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Mike Jean Bandfield
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2005 3:43 pm

Post by Mike Jean Bandfield »

The first place I'd look is to see if there isn't a relationship between the vapor lock and the new muffler. Were any exhaust pipes rerouted or heat sheilds inadvertently left off?

But maybe it was just the added load of the new toad causing a build-up of heat. (The 460 has had various heat related problems depending on year and application.) In any event, the fix is probably the same - make sure your fuel supply lines are not routed too close to the exhaust system and the engine is in good tune. There are a number of ways to genereate excessive heat that could exacerbate a borderline problem - leaky intake manifold, carburetion, timing, et. al.

Worst case: you may find your particular engine model is susceptable to vapor lock in which case your best fix could be installing an EGT gauge (exhaust gas temperature) and through trial and error learning how far you can push the temp without triggering vapor lock.

Mike
Mike & Jean
2005 26' RSS Diesel
Wayne

Post by Wayne »

We had the some trouble here in New Mexico,had a mechanic check the fuel pump pressure at the engine. Sure enough the fuel pump was going bad. Replaced the fuel pump and have not had any more problems
bill crommett

vapor lock

Post by bill crommett »

There comes a time when a driver must use his own judjement as to when to downshift rather than relying on the computer that was programmed for the great American average.
olscow

Post by olscow »

My 92 BF24RB did the same thing. Problem came and went, then came back in the heat of the second day. New fuel pump cured it. Guys who did the work said if I wanted to put off replacement for a while to keep the tank more than half full to keep the pump temperature lower... we were out in the wild west so did not gamble.
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