I've been wondering what effect then rubber cover/insulator has on injector life/operation.
Besides hearing them louder with the rubber cover off.
I've had mine off for a year now but with the onset of winter it got me thinking about the temperature differential they would experience.
The injectors would be getting quite hot during operation ~ 80degC.
They would quite likely rapidly cool due to the large temperature difference with 10 to 15 degrees outside temps.
So how would this temperature cycling effect the life span of the injectors?
With covers off - this means all rubber bits stuck around and over the injectors removed:
Base of injector measured and midway ~66deg, piezo stack ~54deg. I did find number 4 injector to be warmer than the others.
So a slight variation across the all four.
An hour later they were all quite cooler at about 50deg.
With the covers on the entire, visible injector body is about same temperature so this means piezo stack also at about 77degC.
The very base as it comes out the valve cover was at 82degC.
However the injectors remain hot for quite a length of time after switch off so if one starts vehicle and drives again the injectors don't go through a heat up cycle again. Injectors were all at ~70degC an hour later.
Both these measurements were done in a basement parking so not exposed to the outside colder air which i'm sure would have caused the uncovered injectors to cool even more.
I used an infrared thermometer and a CAT S60 which has the FLIR sensor.
The temperature cycling with covers off bothers me but do the injectors prefer to run cooler (piezo stack is what i'm thinking of).
On the other hand a uniform temperature also means all parts are at the same expansion from heat but they would be running hotter.
I haven't been able to find any info on ideal piezo stack operating temperature.
Maybe I'm just over thinking this...
