Carter HP4601 finally dies ... also who is using what aftermarket pump........

[Mopar-muscle]

ok , i helped it along , ran the truck out of fuel , wasn't paying attention and was trying to get stuff done before going on vacation the next morning .



these carter pumps are to frail , this is the second one that i have seen die in minutes with it sucking air for a short period of time , a minute or so , other was on a truck that had 100k plus miles on the original pump , changed banjo bolts and that was it for the pump , this was a factory issue pump .



these pumps should not be where they are or what they are ... DC garbage at its best ...



anyway , good thing i carry the original in the back seat , 2 hours later , after walking to get fuel and buy a fuel can ,( when did the word SERVICE STATION cease to exist ???) i was back on my way .



ok second part , who is using what , for how long ? i have to buy another pump and correctly mount it along with a back up installed to decrease down time ... i never have the time to do it right , but iseem to have the time to do it over ...

 

[csutton7]

dang---awesome timing as usual--things always go topsy turvy when you're trying to get out of town--bummer---



Aeromotive--gravity fed--9 mos... but you knew that---good luck and try to enjoy the ol' vacation..... chris

 

[Mopar-muscle]

chris , it happened a week plus ago , turned into a very long evening .



aeromotive pump , sounds interesting , got any more info , i did a search but didn't find any info you may have posted .



also don't see one listed in summit catolog , just regulators , which i don't want to have to add .



thanks .

 

[Mopar-muscle]

update , did a web search and looked in summit again , i did find the info ,on both , need a regulator for their street pump which is way more than i want to spend , or need .



the search is on , i may hack open the carter pump to see if i can figure out what failed , till then the stocker is doing fine , of course i am only running 3's at present till i rebuild my trans ...

 

[CUMINNTSTRKN]

john



i have been running the same holley red pump for 35k miles as a pusher pump. i still run the oem pump in the stock location.



jim

 

[Opz01]

John,



I have been running a 4601HP for 15K miles. Was yours remote mounted by the tank? I haven't run completely out of fuel which maybe why all is still well. How many miles did you get out of the one that failed?



Opie

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Prefilter

John, did you have any sort of filter before the pump? In all my lookings around the only one I think is suitable is an Edelbrock (also sold under another name, forgot which though) which flows over 1,000gph and has a screen mesh filter. Anything that flows less than a few hundred GPH would likely induce too much vacuum when drawing the fuel and increase the possibility of cavitation and premature failure.



Here is a link to it at Summit Racing. It flows 15. 3 gallons per MINUTE and available in -6AN and -8AN fittings



http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=15895



Vaughn

 

[Mopar-muscle]

thought i put that in there ...

Opz , my pump was mounted on the engine , 1 yr and 32k miles , ran it out of fuel a total of 2 times i believe , the second time was the killer .



i'm not postive i ran it out of fuel , it was lo , the pump may have died , just happened to happen when i was very lo on fuel , i was able to get a bit over 34 gallons in my 34 gallon tank , but i always fill it to the return in the filler tube which i believe is 1. 4 - 1. 6 gallons more than max rated fuel capacity , but a gallon spread over the entire length of the tank ain't much depth .



vaughn , thanks for the filter link , my fuel pickup is factory stock , it has a fine mesh filter screen in it , can't imagine that anything got thru it and killed this pump . it being mounted at the engine and being run dry i think is more inline with its death .



i like the areomotive pump that chris sutton is rumnning , but pump and regulator is over 400 bucks , i don't like it that much , i could buy almost 5 carter pumps for that and replace them yearly



jim , thanks , good to see a holley living , but i don't want to go the pusher pump route , then i'll need to add a regulator and return because of the higher pressures that i have seen posted with pusher pump systems .

 

[Evan A. Beck]

22,500/6 mos on my 4601HP, and still performing great.

 

[CannonBall]

Mopar, go to Jeg's website and punch in the part number (512-105). This pump can be regulated to 68GPH@15PSI. I have this pump on the bench. I decided to go with part number (512-103). This pump is identical in physical size but can be regulated to 50GPH@15PSI. This pump is also 109. 00 dollars. The price is right.



I had a dicussion with a Holley tech and he stated that this pump was tested continuously for 2500 hours and disassembled and inspected for wear. Showed little sign. I also understand that this pump is made by Walbro. They make good stuff.



My Aeromotive regulator should be here tomorrow. I know this pump will have no problem holding the fuel pressure I am looking for (15PSI) I just do not know for sure how long it will last. Give it a look.

 

[15w40]

Lift Pump Obsession

I’m obsessed with the lift pump problems us “24 valvers” are having. I am sure that DC hopes we all go away when the next generation, common rail ISB comes out.



Someone wrote that a good pump should last more than 2000 hours. Working with that figure, if an average speed of 35 MPH is used for combined city and highway driving, the pump will start to die at 70K miles. Not great and not much longer than the stock Carter lift pumps in many cases.



I am looking for a 150K + mile solution for this problem. The life in hours would be closer to 4300. In engineering terms this is a measurement of Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), and is used by all companies concerned with quality of their products. I wonder if Carter would share this information with us? (Not likely. )



Anyway, one idea that I have been kicking around is to pressurize the fuel tank to about 8-PSI. This is the latest specification for minimum pressure to the Injection pump. The difference in pressure at the input of the VP44 and the return line pressure has to be 8-PSI to satisfy the injection pump specification. To accomplish this a pump is needed to move fuel from the VP44 return line into the fuel tank. The lift pump in its current location is sucking fuel from the tank, and if reconfigured and installed in the return line for this application will be under less stress. The pump will be working with a positive pressure at its input port and would flow only about 70% of the fuel the lift pump flows in its stock location. The head pressure is now 8-PSI instead of 15 and at WOT; the pump flow is reduced even more because more of the fuel is used to make HP and not returned to the tank. The connection from the fuel return line to the relocated lift pump would use a tee and check valve to allow air to enter and relieve vacuum if the lift pump is flowing more fuel than the VP44 return line is supplying. If this is a problem, a better solution is turning down the voltage to the lift pump. At lower voltage the pump life should improve by running slower. An air pump would have to be added, to keep the tank pressure at 8-PSI. Maybe from an air horn compressor and tank using a regulator or by tapping into the output of the engine mounted vacuum pump to supply air. The air volume needed would only need to be at the rate of fuel used although it may delay starting if the tank is low and the pressure is relieved



I know this is a crazy idea, but I am looking for ideas or for someone to shoot holes in this. The only problem I see is the “whoosh” when removing the fuel cap when filling the tank and maybe the tank becoming a balloon in hot weather. On the positive side of things, priming after a filter change would be a snap by running the air pump and cracking a fitting. When starting the engine the difference between the VP44 inlet and outlet pressure might be zero but I don’t think this will shorten its life. Adding a check valve at the input of the VP44 should keep it primed and at low cranking speeds, wear should not be a problem. Another idea is to keep the lift pump in its stock location and use it only for starting and use the return line pump supplying fuel after the tank is pressurized. But this would require another check valve to bypass the stock lift pump when it is turned off.



All comments are welcome, but mounting a 55 Gal. Drum to the roof of the cab will not be considered.



I think it was comedian writer Dave Berry that wrote: “There is a fine line between hobbies and insanity. ”

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

15w40, IMO I highly doubt that would work. If you moved the stock lift pump to the return line you would be pushing the fuel that comes out of the VP44 back to the tank - but what would be feeding the fuel to that point? What you'd actually be doing is using the VP44's built in lift pump (which obviously is uncapable of doing to the job by itself otherwise we wouldn't have the stock lift pump on the engine) to suck the fuel out of the tank to feel it to the stock lift pump on the return line. The stock lift pump would be drawing through a restricted outlet from the VP44 to push fuel into the tank. That fuel in the tank still wouldn't be pressurized because when the fuel went from the small return line to the large volume of the tank pressure would go to almost nothing. Now if you pressurized the tank with an air pump you'd be pushing fuel back up the return line as well as down the feed line. Even if it did work you'd be running multiple pumps and the air compressor would have to be a 100% duty cycle pump - very expensive. Not to mention the amount of complexity you would be adding to the system.



The question I have to ask is why would you be reluctant to run a helper pusher pump back by the tank feeding the stock lift pump at the engine? The problem with the stock lift pump is that it's located at the wrong place which is causing it to work too hard. I have 45,000 miles on my truck now with the pusher pump and it's still working great, in the previous 60,000 or so I had 4 lift pumps go bad. AFAIK noone that is running the dual Carter lift pump setup that started with a good pump on the engine has had a failure yet. Enterprise Engine started installing this setup in January of last year and last I checked with them has had to replace zero pumps since that time - and some of the first ones were installed on hot shot rigs which probably have at least 150,000 miles on them by now. I know of only one person that has changed a lift pump at the engine with the pusher pump setup and that was Doc Tinker and he had a bad lift pump at the engine to begin with, by adding the pusher pump he helped the original pump last to 49,000 miles (remember it was bad when he put the helper pump on - it was down to 7 psi at idle at that point, it lasted another 12,000 miles before dieing with the pusher pump helping).

 

[superdave]

my fuel injection folks have oredered a Cummins lift pump for my 99... it has an intermittent problem which causes me power loss at speed... i sure hope the Cummins as opposed to the Mopar lift pump will last longer... 46000 miles now... .

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Mopar M, you should be filtered fine with the stock one then (I guess I had stuck in my head my plan to replace the fuel pickup with no filter in the tank). When we were there at Massdiesel's I spec'd out mwheaton's pickup when he had his tank out for the Espar install. I don't think the stock filter is restrictive enough to kill your lift pump.



I would do like I did. . . about 40k ago I removed my lift pump from the stock location and moved it back and mounted it right above the tank near the pickup assembly. My fuel pressure went up 1-2psi @ WOT and the pump has worked fine for 60k now.



Vaughn

 

[Mopar-muscle]

superdave , the cummins and the chrysler pump are the same pump , chrysler just charges more .



15w40 , i'm with steve on this one , it would be cheaper to just yealy replace the factory pump than to do your setup to last maybe 3 years .



unfortunately its an electric pump and they don't last forever . , never mind it being mounted so far from the source .



i think the best solution is an in the tank pump , problem is no one makes one for the pressure we need . so an external regulator would be required , one like the aeromotive unit mounted in the position of the stock lift pump sending the excess back to the tank .

 

[Mopar-muscle]

vaughn , that has been my plan all along , laziness and no time have precluded me from doing it sooner .



we did that setup on bills truck during testing last year when scott and i were up there , with the stock pump we went from 0 to 3 psi , i wanted to see a bit more . i will probably buy another carter pump for now , they are cheap , i do have a 7 psi pump , thought about doing the pusher pump deal before others released their kits , i talked to carter tech , that was the 1st suggestion , then on a second call they told me to dump the stock pump and put the hp4601 back at the tank . i wanted to see how long this one would last , i'm going to play with it some tonite , i have a rebuild kit , going to see if i can bring it back to life .

 

[Ted Constantine]

Cannonball,



Are you running that Holley as your lift pump or as a pusher?



How big is it?



Ted

 

[15w40]

Thanks for the response Steve and Mopar. I know my idea of the pump relocation sounds a little strange, but I thought I had read that the pusher pump has shown some problems. I am glad there is another thread for a poll on lift pump life.



My pump failed, after 50K miles, and would not have been helped with a pusher pump. I don’t know if all pumps fail in the same way but would love to find out. I tested the pump and discovered the spillover valve spring just got tired and caused intermittent and lower pressure. If anyone would send me one of their bad pumps, I will be glad to autopsy it and report back to the TDR forums. I have a set-up in my cellar to run the pump with pressure gauges and a variable output restriction to simulate the actual operating conditions.



Send me a PM if you have a pump and are as curious as I am to find out what went wrong.

I will measure:

the flow with no restriction at the output and pump RPM

the flow with an 8-PSI restriction and pump RPM

the dead head pressure and prmp RPM





Dave

‘98 4x4 2500 Qcab

 

[Mopar-muscle]

thanks gordon , i did some digging on the holley site , found that pump .



the 512-105 i think would be the better pump , for me anyways .



that one is 140 bucks .



what are the size of the barbs in and out ?



can they be changed to an hose ends , not that i'd need to do that ?



it says it should be mounted below the fuel level , does this mean its not a self priming pump , that is a concern .



does it come with a mounting bracket ?



do you need a regulator , its says tbi application and a lower PSI ?



i did notice that holley has an in tank gerator forced flow unit for dodge gassers , but its 80 psi , definitely need a reg for that monster . that has my interest .



i'm going to call holley tomorrow .



off to take apart the carter ...

 

[csutton7]

I'm not so sure any electric pump is self priming--anybody know of one that is---I believe that's one of the reasons for the failures--they're working to hard to get (suck) fuel to pump..... chris