RustBucket

iTrader: (1)

Flame Thrower was kind enough to allow me to test out a set of upgraded 88 22re injectors. A few others have tested this product already and reviews have looked good, so I was excited to try them. This review includes an install writeup.

Abstract: Flamethrower fuel injectors were installed in an 88 22re, rebuilt with 40k on the clock and engnbldr 268 cam. Previous injectors were stock units cleaned and balanced by Witchhunter at the time of rebuild. Installation was easy and painless and took about 2 hours. Initial results are good with smoother idle, quicker starting, better throttle response, and slightly more power. New mileage data is forthcoming. Previous combined mileage is 19mpg or 17.5mpg with constant A/C use.

Here is the engine bay before beginning the project. Yours may look a bit different. Mine has suffered an EGR-delete and removal of other unnecessary wiring and hoses. Please excuse the duct tape over the cracked intake tube.



What we need to do is take off the upper intake plenum to get at the injector rail. Firstly, disconnect your battery and cover the terminals. You don’t want a chance of sparks since you’re working with raw fuel. Before beginning, we need to identify two important engine grounds:


This ground shares one of the bolts connecting the upper and lower plenums.


This ground shared the bolt for the support bracket. Please note that my fuel filter is relocated. Yours will be on the side of the engine block and not in the way as it is here.

Remove and label all of the little hoses that go to the PCV, P/S idle-up, etc. When done it will look something like this:

Also disconnect the cold start injector wire and the banjo bolt (you should probably replace the two crush washers when you reinstall it).

The throttle body has a coolant circuit in it. I was lazy and decided to just unbolt the TB and pull it out of the way rather than going through the trouble of disconnecting those little coolant hoses. One of the hose connections is the circled in the picture:


I just pulled it out of the way and wired it in place. You will need a fresh TB gasket when you put it back together.


Unbolt the 4 bolts and 2 nuts holding the upper plenum on. Slide it off and this is what you have:


Unbolt the 10mm bolt that holds the fuel filter line on the right side of the rail and bend the hardline up a touch so you can get at the 12mm fuel rail bolt. Take off the 2 12mm bolts. Note that when you pull the first injector out of the rail it will spill a ½ cup of fuel on you so have a rag ready.

Now we get to the injectors. Comparing a stock one (left) to the new one (right):


These are obviously remanned injectors. They come with new o-rings and pintle cushion rings. If you look at the length of the body, you’ll see that it’s a bit different than the stock one. The new injectors install without the cushion ring that meets the rail. You’ll also see that the new injectors don’t have the black plastic clip that holds them in a particular rotational orientation. The clip will not transfer over to the new injector, but you don’t need it anyway.

The pintles are very different. The stock one has 2 holes at the end while the flame thrower injector has an annular outlet inside a recessed cone. Intuitively it make sense that this design would be superior:


Here are the 4 old ones for reference. They were redone by Witchhunter a few years ago and still appear very clean:


The flame thrower injectors come with jumper cables that adapt the Toyota injector harness to the different plug style. The quality of these jumpers appears very good. One of my harness ends was missing its retaining clip so I used a zip tie to hold the connection together.


Lubricate the pintle cushions with some clean gasoline and install the new injectors into the lower plenum. Take off the protective vinyl caps off the inlet sides. Drip a little gas onto these o-rings and carefully install the injector rail. Rotate the injectors a bit back and forth to ensure they are seated. Reinstall the 2 12mm bolts and tighten in a few steps. Once it’s on, you’ll find that the installed injectors will rotate with some resistance but are held firmly in place. The jumpers are small enough that there is plenty of space for them. Everything is as it should be.
Here is a detail shot of the injectors installed:



Put on a new upper plenum gasket and reinstall everything in reverse order.

When I first started the truck it took 30 seconds of cranking to get fuel through the empty system. The engine started eagerly and idled high, necessitating a change to the idle screw position. I immediately took it on a 100 mile trip through the mountains and everything is working good. To list a few observations:

- Idle is smoother. My idle has always been rough since installing the 268 cam. This helped noticeably.
- Throttle response and revving is faster. The engine responds to throttle input more quickly.
- Low-end grunt is slightly improved. I can lug up hills a little more easily.
- Top-end response is also slightly improved. I can hold it in 5th on an incline longer and there is definitely more tug at 3000+ RPM.
- My highly calibrated, NIST-traceable butt dyno tells me I’m getting a 3-5% increase in power.
- The engine also runs a bit smoother pulling hard a high RMPs (4500+).
- I usually get about 19mpg doing mixed driving. This is with 33” ATs and 4.88 gears. This summer I have been getting more like 17-17.5 running the A/C all the time. I’ll track mileage from this point and see if there is an improvement.

To summarize, my overall impression of these injectors is good. They worked with no hassle and the improvements over stock were immediately evident. Power increase is minimal but noticeable. I think many folks have seen great gains going from old dirty injectors to new flamethrowers. My data tells me that the flamethrowers are an improvement over clean stock injectors. Thanks for the opportunity to test out and review.

SPARKS89

iTrader: (1)

Glad to see some info on how they perform v. newer stock injectors. I just put FlameThrowers in my 89 22re a couple days ago, but my stock injectors had 216k+ on them. I noticed a BIG difference and my results are almost identical to yours.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...review-272124/

Flame Thrower

if i would have known that these injectors would be plastered all over the internet, i would not have sent you the ugliest and most beat-up looking injectors i had.

glad to see that they outperformed newer stock injectors. i tested these against brand new dealer ($$) injectors before i started selling them.

RustBucket

iTrader: (1)

Hey, they work fine and I'm very pleased with them. There's always photoshop

RustBucket

iTrader: (1)

First fill up = 18.6mpg. This is flogging it through the mountains and running the AC. Already seems like an improvement but I need more data to confirm.

Scrussanation

so how much data did you record... I know they work I got some from ya couple months ago for my 89 3vze and very reliable ive only had them on for idk 3-4 months maybe but I call my 3.0 a 3.GO cuz with everything else Ive done to it my truck doesnt seem like a 3.slow

Flame Thrower

i tested the 84-88 22re injectors in a truck that did a 90 mile daily commute from denver to boulder. the owner of the truck raved about them. got a 4% mileage boost going through the mountains.

RustBucket

iTrader: (1)

Shortly after I installed these injectors I ended up putting the stock ones back. I had a crazy hot start issue that turned out to be bad grounding. But as I had just changed the injectors they were suspect.

This weekend I finally got around to putting them back in. My feedback is again the same as before: I can feel some improvements with the flamethrower injectors. I plan to gather some fuel mileage data now, comparing against a steady 19mpg.

RustBucket

iTrader: (1)

Hey guys,

I wanted to try out a new injector design by Osidetiger (injectors with a 12 hole setup) so I removed my Flamethrower injectors and will be putting them up for sale. The Flamethrowers have been working great and are still a significant upgrade over the stock injectors. Please check the FS ads if you're interested or feel free to PM me.

Tannertmx85

any update on how the 12 hole injectors are doing?