Can you run a FI engine on the bench?, outside of car, or is this nuts? Options

[Hammy]

Has this been done before? Can it be done? I know you'd need the relay board and all that, but what else?
I have a Djet engine up on blocks and it'd be nice to confirm that everything is working correctly before I actually install it in the car... Or is it a major hassle?

[nola914]

I have my 2.0L 73 on blocks running in my shed right now. It hadn't been run in five years so I wanted to check everything before I put it back in the chassis.

And as Hunt says is takes a while to get it set up. You need everything from the car that is involved with the FI system (or at least a working duplicate). I opted to use the devices from the car so that once its tuned a change in one device or another wouldn't change the tune.

You need: the ECU, MPS, Fuel Pump, Relay Board, all of the devices commonly mounted to the engine, i.e Aux Air Reg, Cold Start Valve, etc.; and the Engine/Alternator harness.

You will also need a gas supply, the battery, and some cables to connect the battery to the starter and ground.

And the biggest pain in the rear.... you will need wiring to duplicate the main body harness connection between the relay board and the engine/fuel injection components. If you have a extra 14 pin connector, you just need a bunch of wire. If not, you'll also need some wiring butt connectors to use as female connectors to the pins on the relay board.

I am almost finished diagraming the wiring set up I used on mine as a bitmap doc. I'll get it finished and post it in a couple of days.

I'll say this... even though it was an aggravation is getting it set up, tracking down the problems and getting it tuned was a WHOLE lot easier than trying to do it in the car. Just being able to set the valves in sunlight is almost worth the effort.