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Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:58 pm

Looked up fuel injectors on the autozone website and they offer a G/P Sorensen injector for $35/injector!

The Bosch ones are $90/injector new.

To get them tested and cleaned will be about $20 / injector.

Does anyone have anything to say about the Sorensen injector?

and

Would you pay $20 for the old (mine OE from 1979) ones to be cleaned or just buy the Sorensen?

Thanks in advance for any comments....

Sat Jan 09, 2010 1:17 pm

I would spend the $75 and send my originals out to www.cruzinperformance.com long before I would waste the money on something from AutoZone.

Sat Jan 09, 2010 1:54 pm

Agree - have the Bosch's cleaned and tested.

Sat Jan 09, 2010 5:08 pm

The GP Sorenson injectors have a 1 year warranty and they are made in the USA.

The Bosch injectors only have a 3 month warranty. Bosch parts aren't always that great.

I think, in this case, the less expensive part might be worth trying if you needed new injectors. If you can have the original injectors reworked for $20, that's probably the way to go.

Sat Jan 09, 2010 6:04 pm

I've cleaned mine and still have the 79 injectors installed. My mileage could be better (avg 17mpg), but performance is excellent. I'd go with reliability. If they work, keep them.

Frank

Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:18 pm

did you end up with the sorensen, I am thinking of aquiring them as well

Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:45 pm

I bought my fuel injection off the samba here and promptly sent my injectors off to witchhunter performance. They clean them and test them and then send you a print out of their performance. I couldn't be happier. I agree with the others, I wouldn't buy any part from autozone that will actually bolt onto the bus. Grease, oil - those things are ok, but no parts.

Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:46 pm

Old thread, but I agree. I bought a spare set off here, and sent both to Witch Hunter to be "rebuilt". Best money I ever spent.

Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:44 am

When I went through my FI last year, I was going to have my injectors cleaned and tested, until I came across these:

http://www.gowestyautoparts.com/1979,VOLKSWAGEN,TR...BSH007035/

I ended up just buying new ones and plugging'em in. Of course, I see they're currently out of stock... Anyway, I've used gowestyautoparts.com several times now with good results.

Mon Jun 18, 2012 9:14 am

I just boxed mine up last night and they are going to Cruzin. I don't trust some stuff out of Advance, Autozone or the Pep guys.

Mon Jun 18, 2012 10:27 am

VDubTech wrote: I would spend the $75 and send my originals out to www.cruzinperformance.com long before I would waste the money on something from AutoZone.

x2. Mine work great and they do a good job. Fast turn around.

Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:28 am

So, I thought I'd add to this post. Tonight we fired up an engine that had 4 of my cleaned injectors from cruzin performance. Check out the test results here:

http://www.cruzinperformance.com/injcleaned/retrieve.php

id: 6813
name: soultanian
serial: 1205031-1205034

You'll notice that they test out great.

The engine was recently rebuilt and so we started it up, and it was running slightly rough, but I figured that was due to the rebuild and it obviously still needs to be broken in. I also had to back out the idle screw (raise idle) which was kinda odd, but whatever.. new engine - it's a 1979 bus, btw.

Well, I was putzing around inside the engine compartment and for kicks I thought I'd pull each injector plug and make sure each injector's working. When I got to #2, I got nothing - well that's odd. So we went through all the usual stuff - checked for spark, checked the spark plug wires, swapped injector plugs - no change - still that injector. I pulled off the injectors and watched them spray - both 1 and 2 looked like they're flowing. I pulled the plug - compression 145. I even tried changing the plug out with another cylinder - no change. Finally after scratching our heads, we decided to swap the 1/2 injectors and see if the problem followed the injector - sure enough, it did! Now when I pull the #1 plug, there's no RPM drop.

What I don't get is why that injector's not working. We just had them tested not too long ago and it's not working. I'm not sure why, but something's funky with that injector.

But now here's the part where I don't know what to do. I have extra injectors so I'm thinking of sending two of my injectors to cruzin and have them cleaned, and also send the bad one to see if Rich finds anything funky with it. The owner of the bus, however, has some of those Sorensen injectors from Autozone, and he was asking if we should use those instead. I'm at a loss because I thought the bosch would be the most reliable, but obviously they aren't!

Thoughts?
Mike

Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:12 am

msoultan wrote: So, I thought I'd add to this post. Tonight we fired up an engine that had 4 of my cleaned injectors from cruzin performance. Check out the test results here:

http://www.cruzinperformance.com/injcleaned/retrieve.php

id: 6813
name: soultanian
serial: 1205031-1205034

You'll notice that they test out great.

The engine was recently rebuilt and so we started it up, and it was running slightly rough, but I figured that was due to the rebuild and it obviously still needs to be broken in. I also had to back out the idle screw (raise idle) which was kinda odd, but whatever.. new engine - it's a 1979 bus, btw.

Well, I was putzing around inside the engine compartment and for kicks I thought I'd pull each injector plug and make sure each injector's working. When I got to #2, I got nothing - well that's odd. So we went through all the usual stuff - checked for spark, checked the spark plug wires, swapped injector plugs - no change - still that injector. I pulled off the injectors and watched them spray - both 1 and 2 looked like they're flowing. I pulled the plug - compression 145. I even tried changing the plug out with another cylinder - no change. Finally after scratching our heads, we decided to swap the 1/2 injectors and see if the problem followed the injector - sure enough, it did! Now when I pull the #1 plug, there's no RPM drop.

What I don't get is why that injector's not working. We just had them tested not too long ago and it's not working. I'm not sure why, but something's funky with that injector.

But now here's the part where I don't know what to do. I have extra injectors so I'm thinking of sending two of my injectors to cruzin and have them cleaned, and also send the bad one to see if Rich finds anything funky with it. The owner of the bus, however, has some of those Sorensen injectors from Autozone, and he was asking if we should use those instead. I'm at a loss because I thought the bosch would be the most reliable, but obviously they aren't!

Thoughts?
Mike

Did the injector seal follow the problem injector as well? Bad seal= vacuum leak= no difference when you pulled the plug off the injector.

Even if the seals are new, one could be bad or not seating right. If you saw the "bad" injector spray, it's working.

Thu Oct 11, 2012 6:34 am

Yes, the seal did follow - let me swap the seals and report back. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:42 pm

Well, the seal swap didn't make a difference.

Btw, I didn't want to hijack this thread, so I started a new one:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6301485#6301485

Wed Oct 17, 2012 7:08 am

It looks like those Autozone injectors are now $75 each now anyway.

Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:23 am

See this post for background --
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6903690#6903690

Just a quick note on a long story for a new engine build.

Driving too hard through the mountains loaded up – I blew my engine in 1996 – two months before my son was born. Served him as a jungle gym and clubhouse for his friends over the years (little kids love buses!), and from 2001 – 2009 being garage kept. I started formally taking her apart to get her going again (I think in 2003 – when I pulled the injectors and sent them off for cleaning). You are free to joke about how slow I am and all my mistakes – nonetheless – might still want to heed my advice.

The moral of the story is two-fold:

1) Take Cruzin’s advice and time your cleaning with minimal shelf storage
2) Cleaning/using your OEM injectors may not always be the best path (maybe) for injectors that have been sitting for 10 years before you start, and/or when you face build problems in getting the engine going quickly once re-assembled – like I did (don’t ever do what I did anyway is at lest one lesson).

As it all turned out – two of my cleaned/tested injectors failed me. A second lesson for me – it’s great that I got my injectors cleaned/tested – would do it again – but put no faith in them till you know they are working on a new build. If something is wrong when you start up a new build – just pretend you didn’t get them tested and cleaned - and behave accordingly when diagnosing. i.e. Don’t check them off as OK.

So – I know what I know now – I decided today to just buy 4 new GP Sorenson’s at $30/each. I plan on keeping the two good OEM injectors I do have as spares – and maybe eventually get back to some new OEM’s if/when I can swing it – (but I need more info first on why that is a good idea or not -- is OEM-vs BOSCH basically an analogy for generic meds as an example – this thread did not convince me!!).

Biggest reason I will buy 4 new GP’s – I am still not convinced why the two failed once I got them in the new engine – would rather get my engine running well for a bit before I invested more heavily – until I can gain confidence, for example, the rest of the system is at least not blowing my injectors out under load.

Other reasons - well – cheap enough – I also get spares and I don’t have to worry about why my two tested/cleaned ones failed and (if its not my system) when the other two might follow suit. No doubt years of sitting across my “epic saga of a build” is not ideal – it at least calls into question how much faith one should put in old injectors, even after they pass a professional cleaning and testing regime (my 2004 test results still look great !!!).