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BF50D fuel injection issue

FLCaptain

New member
Hello all. New member here. I've searched through all the topics and cannot find anything that helps me. My Father has a BF50D, that sat for some time with ethanol fuel in it. I pulled the vapor separator and cleaned everything out thoroughly. Replaced the filters, replaced the insulator/filter that is on the fuel pump itself. Dumped the ethanol fuel and purchased new ethanol free fuel which was treated with Stabil as well. She started and idled fine. Used it a couple times over a few months, never really revving it much - long story/short run/slow speed. Started it a couple days ago, started and idled fine, slowly motored out of the slow speed zone and opened it up a little bit. Went about 100 feet and I realized I had not opened the vent on the fuel tank. As I reached back to open the vent, she bogged down and stalled. I never got it started again. A friendly boater towed me back to the ramp. I noticed that I could not get the primer ball to stay hard, and I could hear air in the fuel tank. I pulled the pickup tube out and found it cracked. I replaced the tube, cleaned everything and made double sure it was all sealed up well. Now the primer ball works fine. The motor would start, but idle extremely roughly, and only run maybe 15-20 seconds. I pulled the vapor separator off, and found some crud on the screen at the bottom of the fuel pump. I cleaned everything up, flushed it all out with carb cleaner, and put it back together. No joy. Motor acts the same. Will start only after I cycle the fuel pump four or five times, and then runs very rough until stalling 15 seconds later. It won't restart unless I cycle the fuel pump four or five more times again. I pulled the injector rail, cleaned the injectors, took the vapor separator apart again and double checked everything. Still no joy. I pulled and cleaned the spark plugs, made sure all had spark. All good there. It sure seems like it's not running on all 3 cylinders when it does start for a few seconds. Could my fuel pump be bad? The pump runs and fuel squirts out when I crack a line open. Maybe it isn't making the pressure it should? Where would I attach a gauge to check the pressure? How high should it be? Fuel pressure regulator looks good and is clean inside. Could the tank vent being closed have caused something to fail in the pump or regulator? This engine has less than 10 hours on it since new. It is out of warranty. The only Honda Tech within 50 miles of me is out of town for the next three weeks. I'm at a loss here, don't know where to go next, except replace the fuel pump. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. Tim
 
I believe he purchased it new around 2012. The serial number is BBEJ - 1106168. I've never been able to find the year on it anywhere.
 
Well, I managed to get a pressure gauge on the service port of the high pressure filter. It shows 45 psi when I turn on the pump, and about the same for the few seconds that it runs very roughly. I believe this is the pressure it should be, and that the fuel pump is working. Please coreect me if I'm wrong. Not sure where to go from here - Injectors?
 
45psi should be more than adequate to start and run. Does the primer bulb stay hard while this is happening? Have you tried squeezing the bulb to see if you can keep it running? The additional debris you found after already cleaning out the VST makes me think of ethanol attacked fuel hose flaking off and causing flow problems.

Iwrote a bunch more but the site kicked me off and erased it all. I will check back later but I need to run

Keep us posted and good luck
 
It does start and run - only for 15 seconds or so and very, very rough. It acts like its running out of fuel - I need to cycle the fuel pump several times each time I start it. The primer bulb stays hard. Pumping it doesn't have any effect. I think the additional debris was silicone grease that I used to hold the O ring seal in place - I know better now. I actually found a certified Honda Technician about an hour away, and dropped it off to him yesterday. He seemed fairly perplexed as well. He thought maybe the injectors. Who knows? It will be a week or more before he can even look at it, so it's a waiting game now.
 
Ok, thanks for the update and please let us know how you make out with it. Every solution found and posted here will undoubtedly help someone save some $$$ even if it wasn't your turn.....yet. I hope it's something simple and inexpensive.

My next suggestion was probably going to be to remove fuel rail and injectors and check the spray patterns from the nozzles.

Good luck.
 
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Finally got it back from the technician- turned out everything I did was correctly done - whew! Turns out it had a bad mass air sensor and a bad oxygen sensor. It actually was partially covered under warranty! Still got four months of warranty remaining. Cost me a couple hundred in labor, but she is purring like a kitten now.
 
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