Hey guys,

I recently discovered that my fuel pump has a bad check valve. I've been searching online for a new pump kit but there are so many options that I'm having a hard time deciding which one I need! I was wondering if you guys had any recommendations for a quality kit. My 86 is fully stock and all I'm looking for is a pump that is reliable and easy to install (I don't want to splice in a new harness). Any input would be greatly appreciated!

 

Walbro 255L pumps have been the go-to pump for performance applications for over 25 years. I would suggest the 255L HP for your stock 86. I've installed a couple of dozen of these in various stock port fuel injected GMs since 1998 when I discovered the Walbro. I put one in my Typhoon in 98, it is still in the tank today performing flawlessly at least 100k miles later. I like Walbro.

A few years back, Walbro sold to another company, and has a different name now but so far quality and longevity was not affected. "Walbro" pumps have been counterfeited by the Chinee for over 20 years. Fakes are predominant. I even got fakes from Jegs after I asked if they were genuine, which the order-taker assured me they were. Nope. I sent them back.

I've been using this guy since 1998. He sells only genuine "Walbro" pumps. The link is to the page with the applications. Scroll down to "GM", you want the FPG003 kit. It comes with a bag of stuff that includes a wiring harness adapter. It is not a fussy install. This is his side-gig, he has a day-job. He's difficult to get a hold of, and doesn't respond to email or phone calls. Place the order online and be patient. It will show up in about a week or so. But the part is what you want. Reliable. (I can't say the same for Racetronix, they don't last very long, if they even last a week.)

 

Cheers! I'll definitely be checking them out as soon as I can. Thanks for the help!

 

Walbro pumps are great but be careful. There are a lot of Chinese made counterfeit Walbro pumps on Amazon or ebay. I always get Walbro's from places like Summit Racing, Racetronix or TI Automotive.

 

I agree. Get a real walbro pump. You won’t regret it

 

If you can't find a legit Walbro I've also had great luck with Deatschwerks fuel pumps over the years and they seem to be ripped off less often. I'm putting a DW200 (255lph) in my '86 to feed the LS6 that's getting swapped into it.

 

Been using Delphi pumps in everything that needed one for the last decade or so, haven't had a problem yet.
Have had trouble with airtex. Bosch are usually alright if you can get one for a given application too.
I'm sure the Walbro are fine with the counterfeit caveat, never used one though.
Remember you need submersion rated fuel line for use *in* the tank, and finding a sock filter
that fits the little plastic tray in the tank on these was a pita. It's a silly design for a performance car, or any car tbh.
There's been lots written about them.

 

Need to make sure it pumps outside the Vette, not just run the motor but it really pumps, I brought 2 new ones the motors ran but would not pump, might save lots of trouble.

 

1. Fake Walbro pumps are not predominant and the few pumps that do exist are blatantly obvious and not typically marked as such. This lie that has been perpetuated by a select few Walbro vendors with web store pop-up banners that have been feeding this narrative for many years.
2. Walbro was bought by TI Automotive back in 1999. Walbro Automotive has been sold to various investment groups in 2012 and 2021 but this did not change anything related to production. TI bought Pierburg back in 2003 which brough their patented screw-pump technology under their umbrella. TI still makes Walbro HP pumps. Starting in 2015 the Walbro branding was replaced with TI on HP pumps. This transition lasted through to 2019. The only Walbro branded pumps now are for the recreational and marine markets.
3. Walbro's warranty does not extend to their high-performance product line as documented here on their corporate web site: https://aftermarket.tiautomotive.com...t-Warranty.pdf.
4. Racetronix is a Walbro distributor. We offer a wide range of Walbro products as well as our own house-brand RXP pumps which are E85 compatible.
5. Racetronix doesn't recommend running a newer HP 255 LPH pump off of the factory bulkhead wiring. Over the 26 years we have been in this business we have seen many bulkhead wiring assemblies fail. A Walbro 180/190 LPH pump is more than adequate for most C4 applications and will not generally cause wiring failures. If a 255 LPH+ pump is required, we offer bulkhead wiring upgrades to eliminate this problem.
6. Racetronix sells tens of thousands of pumps every year. Many of our customers have pumps running for 10+ years. The only time you hear anything negative is when someone has a problem and they post of this forum which over 26 years has a cumulative effect. The silent vast majority enjoy long-term performance.

 

I used a Delphi pump I got from AutoZone and worked fine. As already stated you should get a pump from an established vendor to give you peace of mind. There seems to be some people on Amazon and eBay selling counterfeit parts.

 

Walbro is great but these days I don't trust the source.

Aeromotive offers comparable fuel pumps with same run-hours , pressure, and even greater flow rates if needed.
And for me at least its alot easier to find an authorized aeromotive fuel pump distributor and there doesn't seem to be much being copied of theirs in the first place.

I would at least contact aeromotive, explain the application and have them recommend a pump then simply compare the price and budget and if its little difference, a few extra is worth peace of mind, then ask aeromotive directly for an authorized distributor contact. It takes most if not all of the worry out of the equation over finding authentic fuel pump.

 

Damn Kingtal0n, I'm just saying... we should be friends. I've spent nearly my entire adult life living in South Florida (except for my time with the agency), and am a huge Atari fan. I have bought like everything they've sold in the past decade, have a 2600, and even an Atari Jaguar with a bunch of games... plus the newer VCS and 2600+.

 

Waiting a restock from Racetronix for the C4 kit. Also need a recommendation for a pump setup for a 485 crank horse 383, Miniram, AFR 195 Enforcers. Thinking 36# injectors, so a 255lph should be adequate right?

 

Maybe. I had 400 whp with 36 # injectors with a 255 pump from Racetronix. It didn't give me any problems. I upgraded when I wanted to play with E85. If running ethenol you would need way more injector and more pump. The Walbro 450 is a great choice also. And it's E85 compliant.

 

Just wanted to ask... everyone here is suggesting going with a much higher pressure / performance oriented fuel pump beyond what is standard for the OEM configuration. I can make some assumptions as to why... ensures constant fuel pressure at the optimal factory pressure (because it's a return-based system), and you'll have ample fuel should you modify it and actually need more fuel.

But does this have any effect on things like the rubber portions of the fuel lines and the life of the fuel pressure regulator?

 

The fuel pump doesn't set the pressure the regulator does. You can run any of these pumps at the factory pressure. You would just have more volume of fuel.

 

Depends if the goal is reliability/daily driver
or
racing application

If its a daily driver and won't see racing use then its fine to use low pressure and long duty cycles, place fuel on the valve like OEM. I recommend 38psi baseline fuel pressure for that situation.

If its a racing-only vehicle then it would benefit from a more powerful pump 340lph and twice the size of those injectors 60 to 70lb/hr this way you can raise pressure 60 70 80psi to get kinetic energy burst in between 330degrees to about 220 degrees of crankshaft rotation by pulsing the injector near peak piston velocity window opportunity
https://forums.holley.com/forum/holl...2758#post92758

assuming it has seq-efi coil over plug stuff going on this would be the more ideal, to trial and error. It depends on the intake manifold design, injector placement, and other factors Im sure.

On walbro website it has graphs like these,

No matter what vehicle, I like to size the pump at 12v so we can account for alternator / belt failure in flow pump flow rate capability.
We also need to account for friction in the lines, and I also chop a couple percent off to account for age at the end.
Lets say 60psi fuel pressure at pump, this is prob about 57psi at the engine at wide open throttle on typical 5/16" line systems with factory friction around 400 to 500bhp. I remember that 600rwhp using 5/16" fuel line for decades, the pressure drop is reasonable up to almost 700rwhp on gasoline iirc.
couple ways to do it
its about 50gph at 60psi.
For E10, Take gasoline at 114,000btu/gal
ethanol 76000btu/gal, the mix is around 110,000btu/gal
50 gallons should be (50*110000) 5,500,000btu/hour ?
1hp = 2545btu/hour
We have 2160~ horsepower now(5,500,000/2545),
If we assume 25% of that makes it to the crankshaft then really its only 2161*0.25 = 540bhp.

5,500,000 btu/hr is 1600kW. Lets try another approach
E0 gasoline is 6.17lb/gal so 50gph is 308 lb/hr
With the lb/hr number, we can simply multiply brake specific fuel consumption to get some rough ideas of power from the fuel.
Ex.
308lb/hr/0.60bsfc(lb/hp*hr) = 513bhp apparently
308/0.55bsfc = 560bhp

Natural aspirated engines could be 0.55 or 0.49 something like that, when clean and right.
Running richer, or adding resistance in the form of supercharger crank accessories or turbine spinny wheels all makes BSFC increase, the engine needs more and more fuel to make correspondingly less power per gallon of fuel.

I'd say based on that graph the 255 is in the correct ballpark even at 50 to 60psi with 12.0v.
But is that even the right graph? I don't know why they have several 255 pumps labelled as 255 Walbro when they all flow different at varying pressure. So this is caution like, which walbro 255? there appear to be several kinds. Watch the pressure, flow, model number, it isn't just 255 when at 60psi we get 50gph and 50gallons is 190liters, so its a 190lph pump sometimes, or more or less depending.

 

My friend I cover pretty much all aspects of reliability here, its long but its almost everything I think
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1608664080


I always use 38psi baseline for seq-efi 4, 6, and 8 cylinder turbocharger daily driver applications for 20 years. Low pressure is a low stress system and will help prolong fuel system lifespan, lower fuel heating, better current at pump with less electrical heating, many benefits if you can manage such a system. But may not be worth the trouble for mild 500bhp natural aspirated setups using small fuel pumps like a 255.

 

It can have long term effect on electrical connections because of the increased current flow.

The "hot wire" kits such as Racetronix sells solves this problem. But double-check that the Racetronix wiring is assembled correctly. I had two guys' SyTys in my shop that I had to drop the tanks and replace the sending units because the mis-wired connector introduced 12V into the gauge rheostat and fried it. Two of them. (My experience with racetronix has not been positive.)

My 1992 LT1 car has the grn/wht wire for the ZR-1 secondary fuel pump in the harness to the rear of the car. It would be trivial to use it for additional circuit capacity for the single pump. I can't confirm that other years of LT1 C4 have the ZR-1's additional wire, but they may. I installed a Walbro 255L HP in my 92 last year, and have driven it 15,000 miles since. So far, no fried wiring connections.

I suggested that the OP consider a "Walbro" from the source I linked to because he specifically mentioned "reliability". 27 years, I have never had a failure of a "Walbro" I've obtained from this source. As I said, at least a couple dozen of them over the years.

 

Bigger pumps draw more amps and adds stress on 30 - 40 year wiring and connectors. With a walbro 255 I have had two wiring failures on my 86. The tank bulkhead connector mentioned by Racetronix failed, and a burned pin in a harness connector in front of the passenger door. I installed the Racetronix wiring kit that runs from the alternator to the pump and that solved the wiring issue.