Flavia fuel injection

[GG]

Purchase last year of a Flavia 2000 coupe (1970) necessitated learning about the car's Kugelfischer injection system. This system  was first used on some 1.8 liter motors (about 3500 cars), and then revised for the 2 liter motors (only about 750 cars). It was only used in the 2L for the first two years of production - 1970-71 approx. For the later 2000 coupe, Bosch injection was used.

The Kugelfisher (lets call it KF here) system is quite interesting. When it was working well, it was great - smooth, good power, no fumes, and quite fine. It was working pretty well through last summer, but in the cold, the car ran very poorly, bad starting and running. Really ill. Some of this was thermostat related on the pump, but it seemed there were larger issues to be addressed from years of neglect. So the decision was made to dive in.

The KF pump is practically another motor, with its own small crankshaft, four small pistons pushing out fuel, and  several interlocking and related systems to control the pump - for richness, amount of throttle, cold temp, etc. Unravelling all these, and getting them set up right, is quite a task.

Several people have helped along the way, allowing us to unravel many of its mysteries:
- Andrew Cliff of Omicron helped distinguish differences between the 1.8 and 2 liter pumps, part by part.
- Florent Bidet got us in touch with Deleplace, a French supplier of Peugeot KF rebuild kits
- Bert Ewalds came through not only with templates for gaskets (!), but also a French magazine with 500+ photos, step by step rebuilding of the pumps. He also gave great advise on how to proceed. All great information, thanks to everyone.
- Colin Clamp of Flavia Consortium had all the manuals.
- Mike Kristick in the US had the all-important jig for setting the key control rod distance, and another manual on the injection.

All in all, we were well situated. Fettling through the winter didn't seem to get it right; but then we got lucky: Kristick had a used 2L pump from another car (engineer in Massachusetts had taken it off for a carb setup some 10-20 yrs ago), and that was a really great help. While the Lancia documentation is very clear on the 1.8 liter pump and then the change to the 2 liter pump, oddly my car had an undocumented in-between pump, with a slightly different number, and one or two small differences. While most likely the same as the 2L pump, the decision was made to rebuild the 2L pump on the bench, and then swap them out.  

Giovanni is the master mechanic for the Lancias here in Chicago. From Sicily originally, he just has lots of experience and not everyone has a hub puller for a Traction-Avant in their shop! It took some time for him to find the quiet space to work on this - but he has made good progress in the past two weeks. So far the pump is apart, he cleaned it all, replaced the seals and gaskets in its innards, opened up all passages (some were pretty plugged up), and is putting it back together again. Its looking great. Lots of crud in housings, so getting all that out assures (we hope) good running. He considers the KF pump to be similar to the SPICA used on many US Alfas, even if its similar and yet different from other KF pumps used in Peugeots and BMWs of that period. Owner's role is to sort out the data, find parts, assist in any way - and as we are in need of one rubber cup/seal, unavailable, I'll draw up and have 3D printed. Its not a critical part, so easy enough. We got new intake hoses (similar to Fiat X1/9), have to cut some gaskets, replaced the injectors with the spare ones from the 2L setup, and we're in pretty good shape. Almost there!

Info on these pumps is rather scattered, but it is possible to assemble the proper collection of info/parts. But its been a bit of "from here and there", what do those less familiar with these oddities do? Hopefully this can help someone else down the road.

[lancialulu]

Interesting. I wonder why the inside was so gummed up? Old petrol or poor oil. For the hydraulic section Lancia recommended (now obsolete) an obscure oil which I tracked down an Aerospace Shell equivalent. Interesting as other pumps (Peugeot etc) use engine oil source so no separate sump (with the red stopper). Mike Lucas in Norfolk is the go to guy in UK/EU for KF pump rebuilds.

[simonandjuliet]

Talking to a guy here in France (Aix-en-Provence) yesterday, he does loads of Peugeot KF systems, reckons that the pumps are "relatively" straight forward, he can remake a lot of the worn bits, but he reckons that if the injectors are tired then it becomes more difficult to get them running properly

I asked him about Flavia systems and he is happy to repair and set them up as well

[GG]

Thanks for both of these notes. The specified Esso Univis was an Esso (Exxon) constant viscosity oil,  low viscosity,  pretty 'thin'.as the name implies, an oil whose viscosity doesn't vary over the operating temperature experienced by the pump i.e. basically the under-hood (bonnet!)/surface temperature of the engine.Someone else suggested ATF oil. Giovanni said both the BMW and the Spica used engine oil, so not necessary to go special here.  

Also forgot to mention Brian Long was quite helpful too...

On the gummed up issue - The fuel part of the pump wasn't clogged - it was  debris in some smaller air passages, and then coolant gunk around the thermostat area. The oil/gas areas were pretty darn clean, at least on the pump we are rebuilding.

I was in touch with Mike Lucas, but this spring he was pretty booked up. There has been other mention of the French KF rebuilders, that sound pretty good. In the US, there are a few who can do it - but they tend to want 6 months and several of them aren't so interested in the Lancia KF pump. There is a local performance shop that says they have done them, but its not clear how much experience they have had. So careful work by Giovanni seems OK - and the second set of injectors are in better shape than the originals in the car. One can get (or make work) new or rebuilt injectors, but they are expensive....

Colin sent this lovely image of the special tools - great to have.

[chriswgawne]

Thats all fascinating  Geoff.  Funnily enough I recently came close to buying a BMW 2002Tii with Kugelfischer injection which appeared in overall good condition but which was running very badly, the fuel injection having been apparently recently  repaired by a UK BMW expert!!!! (Not Mike Lucas).
I decided not to proceed (for the moment) although I believe the car might  still be available.

[Sebastien]

Excellent topic, thank you Geoff for starting it!

To complete the address list, for complete rebuild of the KF-pump there is also Gilberto Clerici in Villa Guardia (CO).
I saw this almost finished Flavia engine there last time I was at his shop.

[ColinMarr]

This brings back good memories of my Flavia Vignale KF, which served me well in the mid-1980s and early ‘90s. The KF system, once set up properly, was reliable and efficient. Someone said at the time, the mechanical injection system had more moving parts that most other cars, and the 3D cam that varied richness with throttle setting, was the work of genius, even if it sometimes sounded like steel needles rattling in a tin-can.
Petrol is not a good lubricant and I always used an upper-cylinder-lubricant fuel additive. In my experience, the weakness in the system was the fuel feed pump, which had to deliver fuel to the KF system at about 20psi – in hot conditions with fuel vaporisation this could be problematic. And then there were fire hazards with flexible fuel lines at these pressures!
Happy days!   

[GG]

Some of the inside bits from the pump..nicely cleaned, and without wear, all went back together.

[RobMc]

Hello,
I appreciate there have been no posts on this topic for a while, but thought I'd try asking for help here before starting a 'new topic'.
My Flavia 1.8 injection is running rich and I am struggling to fix this problem. The KF pump itself was checked and serviced by Mike Lucas. I have rebuilt the auto enriching device and this seems to be working as it should (Although I must confess I don't understand the Flavia manual's description of the operation of this device, it seems to work in the opposite way to a choke???). The electrovalve appears to be working, i.e. it only squirts fuel when the starter motor is operated.
I am left thinking that the problem must be incorrect syncing of the butterfly valve to the KF pump? I can't think of anything else.
Thanks to this post, I have finally seen pictures of the special tools used to properly set up control rod length to sync the butterfly valve to the pump operation etc.. Does anyone, anywhere, have access to these tools that I could perhaps hire from them? Failing that, does anyone know of a work around in the absence of having the tool to set the control rod length (tool 8015366)?
Any help with this would be much appreciated, I am spending too much time cleaning soot off my spark plugs.
Cheers, Rob

[Spider2]

Ed China fixed a BMW KF on an episode of Wheeler Dealers. I am sure it can be found on Utube. Might help to watch

[RobMc]

Umm, I had assumed the mechanic who reinstalled the KF pump had got the timing that Ed China mentions just right. To be honest I didn't think about this... But I've googled it and seen that if the injection timing is late then one could experience the soot that I am. Is this what you were suggesting when you said it might help, or am I reading too much into it?
Cheers, Rob

[ColinMarr]

I have just searched for, but failed to find the diagram I drew 30 years ago with the precise measurements of that control rod. I once sent a copy to Omicron and think they found it useful. It's worth asking for their guidance.

[GG]

We measured the one that we used for the Flavia 2000 injection, the balls were 170mm apart (CL to CL). Many of the tools shown you can make yourself if nec. Getting the correct setup (so that everything opens correctly in synch with accelerator and engine timing) is kind of important.