Recently I was posting about a Cylinder #3 misfire, which was resolved by replacing all fuel injectors. I sent the old ones to Hurst for cleaning and got a call from Paul that #3 injector has a suspected bad ground wire inside. This was found that when the metal body of the injector was touching the metal of the cleaning machine the injector worked, but when the rubber cushions were on it, it wouldn't.

It's possible the injector went bad after 6 years as it's new OEM, but has anyone else experienced this?

Here's the timeline of events as I think they are relevant data points:

• The day before the check engine light came on for #3 misfire happened, I noticed oil leaking out of the VTEC solenoid switch down into the plastic plug and down the wire harness.
• I replaced all three gaskets (two with OEM and the third with Kraken) in the solenoid, and cleaned out the oil from the plugs as best I could using Q-tips and CRC electrical cleaner
• Noticed there was maybe still some oil in the plugs but figured it's ok
• About 100 miles into my roadtrip, after a hard run where I was doing between 80-110 for the last 30 miles, the light came on while going up a mountain at 105 mph. Check engine light starts flashing then goes solid.

Could the oil in the switch plugs have caused a short? Since that happened, I bought a new solenoid and tried cleaning the plugs and wire harness but it was impossible to get all the oil out, so I clipped the terminal ends of the wire harness and redid the wiring harness at that spot with new plastic plugs and terminals purchased from Cycle Terminal as he sources the OEM ones from Japan (says he has the connections there). Everything has been fine since then.

Paul from Hurst said this is very rare to see an injector fail, and although it's possible it's a failure, we brainstormed that something could also have shorted it and discussed a few things. (he's such a great guy, so glad I sent them to him)

I'd like to run this by the community and what would you check in this instance? Or has anyone had an injector fail like this?

Things I'm going to check are the harness wiring and clips to make sure there's no splice anywhere, rubbing etc, but Paul also suggested running a Volt meter to the positive side and see what happens as it shouldn't be ground on the positive side of the injector.

Last thing is the injectors were very dirty, running the Ethanol fuel here, with the heat and the way I drive, doesn't surprise me (the injectors and ports were coated with a sticky sludge, like an oily sticky syrupy sludge.

 

wait, I am confused here. The injectors are on the opposite side of the motor and above the VTEC solenoid. I am not seeing how oil leaking there would make it into the injector plugs.

 

I did put up a wall of text, allow me to clarify. The VTEC solenoid was leaking oil from the switch and a few inches down the wire harness. I'm wondering if oil there, or an issue with the connection (particles in the oil) in the VTEC solenoid plugs could cause a short in the injector. So that is correct it is on the other side of the engine, and the oil from the VTEC solenoid was just leaking down that section of the wire harness.

The day before the injector went out, this was the only thing that was done electrically in the car, and Hurst suspects a bad ground wire in the injector. I'm trying to see if the two issue could be related or a fluke they happened one day apart.

I hope that clarifies it a bit.

 

oh ok I see what you mean now. And I do not think that could have caused it. To do that the shared ground would have to be shorted to something with enough capacity to burn up the connection of the ground in the injector and that should have caused other issues and a blown fuse. VTEC solenoid or other items in that harness would have stopped working properly too. If the injector ground is truly broken inside the injector I think it likely just died from heat and vibration. Possibly a part that was on the edge from the point of mfgr