Quote Originally Posted by sindarin View Post
MATT!

Had this same issue at or about 10,000 mi maintenance mark (this past few weeks or so).

The gas smell on mine felt like it was exhaust bound but really came from under the hood. It was a loose psgr side hose to the fuel rail PLUS the fuel rail was a lil bent pulling my psgr side middle cyl AWAY from the manifold!

I pulled the manifold and retourqued to BOARD specs (13 ft. lb NOT 18 ft. lb per the manual!!!) I also replaced the Injector O-Rings (soak the upper ones in clean motor oil before you install them!!!!)

I used a Victor Reinz Manifold gasket (Fel-Pro was "good enuff garbage!" up until that point) and I used Nippon Reinz O-rings.... I'm between 16-18 MPG now and I got a ton more torque/acceleration out of her to the point I'm shopping H3 manual trannys now for next the swap/upgrade.

I hope this helps you

PS TONY! That damned flex coupling on the driver side exhaust... oy don't even get me started man!

Thanks Sin! I will check it out when I get a bit of time (which is hard to come by these days). I have a feeling I may have a bit of a leak at the intake manifold gasket anyway, so I've been meaning to pull it off and replace the gasket. Now I have an excuse to do it. I may also replace the fuel pressure regulator just for kicks. Before you replaced the O-rings and fixed the fuel rail, was your VX idling a bit rough? Mine almost feels like it has a small misfire. No codes to speak of so it has to be mechanical. Mine has an aftermarket straight pipe exhaust and I also think it may not have enough back pressure, which may be the cause of my rough idle. I also need to replace the exhaust manifold gaskets, as I'm beginning to hear a slight exhaust leak. Hopefully after all of this, I will get a little bit better FUEL ECONOMY!!!