im thinking of fitting a fuel defender but have heard that they seriously increase the risk of a blown engine. is there a safe way of taking the defender off without to much risk to the engine?

 

The dangers to your engine are from running too much boost or from overboosting and not having any fuel cut at all, not from the device itself. As always it is the idiots that use them that give them a bad name

 

john,

I hope this thread never returns to haunt you .

 

so can you extend the cut out so it comes in later when accelerating

 

t

 

Well, yep, but it's the same thing as John says - on a correctly running, standard boost, etc. car, you should be able to fit a FCD & not care (as where fuel cut should cut in is never reached so the engine is never 'in danger'), but up the boost & it can go too far without the fuel-cut, & pop.
So, in other words, be vewy vewy carefuw!
Why's it being fitted?

 

I've got the HKS FCD.

It has a 12 position dial. 12 is off, 1 is max. Mine is set to 1 and fuel cut doesn't come in at 1.5 bar! Which is what I'm running at the mo!

You can set it to 10 or 11 quite safely I'd say which will give you a bit of a rise in fuel cut but it shouldn't be dangerous.
How are you planning to up the boost?

If you are even considering one though, I'd look at what fuel you are using and how it is controlled/ monitored first.

Yep, I run mad boost but I've got an EGT gauge and AFR meter to check things are ok. I also run Optiomax with NF and an HKS AFR.

Don't just slap up the boost, run 95 ron and change nothing else... That is dangerous. As John B says, be smart and it's fine, be dumb and it's expensive!!

Cheers

Rich

 

i have 97 sti type r full magnex decat, hks filter/dump valve. the decat caused the cutout to occur alot more often. considering unichip also. running optimax.

 

Remap it.

 

Unusually succinct answer from John!

Quite seriously, you are missing out on a lot of potential power running that sort of set up on a standard STi ECU. A re-map would allow you to get more power and retain a sensible safety margin. Just fitting a fuel cut defender will allow you to run higher boost without hitting the fuel cut, but you will not get the most power and you are in risk of damaging your engine.

Why not give Steve Done a ring and see what he can do for you.

Duncan

 

...he can't help you with a 97....

 

Yep,

Remap probably best for you. You Jap ECU is used to 100 RON remember and you are using 98. Start upping the boost too much without an Octane booster and Mr. Det will come a knockin'!

Rich