Alcohol Sensor install

[Swordsmith]

Installed an alcohol sensor today. The job itself wasn't bad, tracking down and/or fabricating the parts and figuring out what exactly needed to be done, though, well that's another story. And I still can't be sure it's really working, since I can't find any output on my Ultragauge that corresponds to the alcohol level.

Anyway, here are the parts:

That's the fuel sensor, two alcohol resistant fuel lines, and a wiring harness

That's the line that gets removed. It's made of rubber, so just splicing the sensor into it is a bad idea, rubber and high alcohol content don't mix well. This line seems to be the only part that will be a problem.

Other end of same line. Both pictures show the existing line, and the new line positioned next to it so you can see where it will go

Here is the line, removed and ready to go on my Stock Parts shelf

Here's the sensor, fuel lines, and wiring harness all plugged together, ready for install

And here's the J3 segment of the ECM; we need a wire from slot 20 to serve as ground and one from slot 34 for the Flex Fuel input (wire to Out on the sensor). I didn't get a picture of this, but I also wired in to a 12+ volt line for power, not off the ECM but in the wiring harness itself.

And finally there's the sensor itself, mounted and fuel lines plugged in.

Starting up the car, it ran rough for a while and then settled down, but UG kept saying Trouble Code Pending. I drove it about a mile, parked, turned car off and back on, and from then on it purred like a kitten, several more miles, up to 60 mph, didn't have any troubles at all.

Is it working? I have no idea! I guess I'm going to have to run a data log and send it to BNR and see what they can tell me.

 

[Preloader]

Excellent!! I'm still waiting for my sensor to arrive, but this write-up will definitely benefit me. Thank you.

 

[rdss]

Very nice!

 

[Preloader]

Might I ask, where did you get the wire harness, and alcohol lines?

 

[Eric Smit]

Great write up. where does the pin go?


-Eric Smit

 

[ol_blue]

Might I ask, where did you get the wire harness, and alcohol lines?

X2 for me?

 

[Swordsmith]

I bought the wiring harness from the same Buick dealer that sold me the sensor in the first place. I had the fuel lines fabricated at Manheim Hydraulic, who've made me many forge and hammer line parts over the years. They didn't like my idea of just splicing in to the existing line, pointing out that it was not alcohol ready. Plus, this way I get another part for my Stock Parts shelf!

I forgot to mention that I chopped the wiring harness in half, discarding the other end, since I had to splice into one line, and run individual lines to two different pins inside the J3 box, there wasn't any simple way to just plug that far end into something.

 

[RS Turbo]

Nice clean install! Great Job.

 

[GeneralZod]

What is the benefit of this? Will it allow timing changes?

 

[Preloader]

I bought the wiring harness from the same Buick dealer that sold me the sensor in the first place. I had the fuel lines fabricated at Manheim Hydraulic, who've made me many forge and hammer line parts over the years. They didn't like my idea of just splicing in to the existing line, pointing out that it was not alcohol ready. Plus, this way I get another part for my Stock Parts shelf!

I forgot to mention that I chopped the wiring harness in half, discarding the other end, since I had to splice into one line, and run individual lines to two different pins inside the J3 box, there wasn't any simple way to just plug that far end into something.

Any chance you got the part number from Buick for the harness?

 

[rdss]

What is the benefit of this? Will it allow timing changes?

It will allow him to go from 87 to 89 to 91/93 to E85 when ever he wants on Trifecta's new E85 tune.

 

[Eric Smit]

And I think he posted the part number in his build thread.


-Eric Smit

 

[GeneralZod]

It will allow him to go from 87 to 89 to 91/93 to E85 when ever he wants on Trifecta's new E85 tune.

That is what I figured, but it would need to be incorporated with the tune, right?

 

[rdss]

Yes, you need the whole package. Tune and injectors.

 

[Swordsmith]

The idea behind doing this is that the 1.4T was designed as a flex fuel engine, complete with tables in the ECM, but that inexplicably GM decided not to offer it as such. By adding a sensor, you can tell the ECM, on the fly, exactly what mix of gasoline and ethanol you are running, which should make it more efficient in today's mix of pump gas that runs anywhere from E0 to E10... but which should also allow even more ethanol.

Without installing bigger injectors and retuning the engine, there's really not much point, but BNR is now offering the injectors and tune; the problem is, without adding the sensor, you have to commit to always running E85, or you have to empty your tank, switch to the different gas, flash the different tune, each time you want to change.

With the BNR kit plus the sensor install, it should be possible to really run anything; E0, E10, E85, or even a random mix, say half E10 half E85... in other words to fill up on one gas when you've got half a tank of something else.

The sensor was Part number 13577379, the wiring harness, I'll have to dig around for parts numbers, but basically I called them back up and said "I need the wiring harness that plugs into that part I ordered earlier"

Even if you don't install this sensor, you'd still want to yank that rubber hose and replace it with an alcohol ready one, if you were doing the E85 conversion.

 

[Preloader]

If the Sonic was initially intended to run on flexfuel, maybe the the stock flex hose is capable of withstanding e85.

The answer I got from BNR was that it would be fine. What's the worst that could happen? Maybe replace the stock line every 3-5 years?

 

[Eric Smit]

Or wait until it fails and replace it with better.


-Eric Smit

 

[rdss]

You might end up replacing more than the hose if its disintegrating from the inside out....

 

[Preloader]

Im not worried...... Even a little bit.

 

[rdss]

Yeah, you're changing the hoses ever so often like you optioned, if you go with Eric's "run it till it fails" option it could get expensive....