Biting the bullet: Converting to electric fuel pump

Laine D

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High altitude PERIOD messes with the fuel system, even if you have a mechanical pump. Too thin air for the fuel being delivered. My F250 suffered badly at 10k feet in Colorado, not even wanting to restart if I turned it off. Once I got down to 9-9.5k it was ok again. Yeah it has an electric pump too but it was an air problem, not fuel. Turbos supposedly help with that, so maybe the RV wouldn't suffer like the truck did.
Yeah I know elevation will effect how it runs. I didn’t expect it to mess with the pressure and timing like it did. I’ve been to the same spot a billion times with the mechanical pump and it was fine.
 

Cubey

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Yeah I know elevation will effect how it runs. I didn’t expect it to mess with the pressure and timing like it did. I’ve been to the same spot a billion times with the mechanical pump and it was fine.

I guess that makes sense, since it's a constant flow rate, not varying with engine RPM like mechanical. The turbo was on it at the time too? It's funny how that last roughly 500ft is what made the truck suffer so badly.
 

IDIBRONCO

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With mine, last summer, I was about 9400' (I think). when i was leaving, I got it started and let it run until the fast idle kicked off. Then I didn't want to start again after sitting for maybe 10 minutes. This is one of the downsides to high elevation as far as I'm concerned.
 

Laine D

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Y
I guess that makes sense, since it's a constant flow rate, not varying with engine RPM like mechanical. The turbo was on it at the time too? It's funny how that last roughly 500ft is what made the truck suffer so badly.
Yeah it’s had the turbo as long as I’ve owned the truck. I got back from camping. Swapped the the facet pump. Then went up again the next weekend. So I guess that was a good test.
 

Laine D

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With mine, last summer, I was about 9400' (I think). when i was leaving, I got it started and let it run until the fast idle kicked off. Then I didn't want to start again after sitting for maybe 10 minutes. This is one of the downsides to high elevation as far as I'm concerned.
I think the highest I got was 8500 but I could definitely feel it and see it on the pyro. Smoked like crazy too
 

Cubey

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With mine, last summer, I was about 9400' (I think). when i was leaving, I got it started and let it run until the fast idle kicked off. Then I didn't want to start again after sitting for maybe 10 minutes. This is one of the downsides to high elevation as far as I'm concerned.
I think the highest I got was 8500 but I could definitely feel it and see it on the pyro. Smoked like crazy too

My NA F250 lacks pyro but it does ok at 8500 with a crappy Mr Gasket 30gph pump.

Here is the area I am referring to. The circled areas are where I had problems.

The highway leading NW from CO Springs to Woodland park, I was rolling coal until I saw in my mirror, so I let off a bit. Other old vehicles were overheating/breaking down on that climb, so it's nothing to sneeze at that.

No problems around Cripple Creek or Victor, aside from slightly lacking power on hills and smoke. No problems starting/restarting. I even camped up there for about 5-7 nights up around there and had no problem starting up to leave.

Then I looped south (outside of this map area) and around back northbound to St Elmo and Leadville. That's were I had problems with it not wanting to restart. After Leadville, I ended up hurrying heading north, down to ~7,000ft in Avon, CO and the problem was gone.

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Laine D

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My NA F250 lacks pyro but it does ok at 8500 with a crappy Mr Gasket 30gph pump.

Here is the area I am referring to. The circled areas are where I had problems.

The highway leading NW from CO Springs to Woodland park, I was rolling coal until I saw in my mirror, so I let off a bit. Other old vehicles were overheating/breaking down on that climb, so it's nothing to sneeze at that.

No problems around Cripple Creek or Victor, aside from slightly lacking power on hills and smoke. No problems starting/restarting. I even camped up there for about 5-7 nights up around there and had no problem starting up to leave.

Then I looped south (outside of this map area) and around back northbound to St Elmo and Leadville. That's were I had problems with it not wanting to restart. After Leadville, I ended up hurrying heading north, down to ~7,000ft in Avon, CO and the problem was gone.

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Super weird how just a couple hundred feet made a difference. I didn’t have any of the issues with restarting but I wasn’t as high up as you were.
 

IDIBRONCO

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Here is the area I am referring to. The circled areas are where I had problems.

The highway leading NW from CO Springs to Woodland park,
That's Hwy. 24. I was north and slightly west of Tincup. I've stayed south of St. Elmo too, but I haven't made it there yet. Maybe this summer.
 

IDIBRONCO

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Super weird how just a couple hundred feet made a difference.
Completely different, but still similar. My carb jetting for my dirt bike and ATVs has it's limit too. If feels almost normal, but there's a point where all of a sudden, I lack power from being too rich. The one spot that I know exactly where that is at, is about 20' from the top of a fairly steep hill climb. It's a pain to have to slip the clutch on my bike to make it to the top, but the view from that mountain peak is worth it too.
 

Cubey

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That's Hwy. 24. I was north and slightly west of Tincup. I've stayed south of St. Elmo too, but I haven't made it there yet. Maybe this summer.

It's a very touristy (sort tourist trap-like) little place, quite a few people there when I was there but nothing horrible.
 

IDIBRONCO

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It would be cool to see it once. There's a lot of history in those old ghost towns. A couple of passes to the south of St. Elmo is the town of White Pine. It's another old mining town. I think that it was a ghost town for a while too. People started buying property there and building cabins. It's nothing but cabins now. Some look nice, others kind of look like a shack. After thinking about it a while, I decided that if I had a cabin there, I wouldn't care if it did look like a shack. It would still be a cabin.
 

Laine D

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Completely different, but still similar. My carb jetting for my dirt bike and ATVs has it's limit too. If feels almost normal, but there's a point where all of a sudden, I lack power from being too rich. The one spot that I know exactly where that is at, is about 20' from the top of a fairly steep hill climb. It's a pain to have to slip the clutch on my bike to make it to the top, but the view from that mountain peak is worth it too.
That’s exactly how my KX is! It’s totally fine up in the mountains until I get to this one trail that goes up pretty high and it always kills me.
 

IDIBRONCO

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That’s exactly how my KX is! It’s totally fine up in the mountains until I get to this one trail that goes up pretty high and it always kills me.
That's what I ride. I have a 1997 KX250. I would like a bigger, newer, nicer bike, but this will still do more than I'm capable of doing, so I keep it around.
 

Laine D

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That's what I ride. I have a 1997 KX250. I would like a bigger, newer, nicer bike, but this will still do more than I'm capable of doing, so I keep it around.
Sick man! I have an 86’ kx125. It’s super fun to rip around and perfect for my skill level lol. Never really had any issues with it.
 

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Since we're talking about elevation and smoke and power I'll post (maybe repost) a picture. This is my truck at the top of Donner Pass, on I-80. The elevation is just over 7000 feet. The trailer was loaded, literally to the roof. The truck is set to run at sea level, and is NA. I didn't notice an appreciable loss of power, but the smoke level did rise. It's times like this that I really want a turbo.

I remember, years ago, taking our '73 VW camper into Rocky Mountain National Park, up from the back side, from the west. That was a long uphill climb, to a bit over 12000 feet, for the old camper with it's 1700cc suitcase engine. It had a hard time running at the top, at that elevation. Needless to say, it was not a happy camper (pardon the pun ;) )

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