u/Internal_Round_6554 — reddlx

Hey folks, recently had intermittent fuel cuts and couldn’t figure it out. Couple days later my fuel gauge was reading erratically. Ordered a walbro 255 and when I went to remove the basket and turned out the top hat had snapped off and the whole basket was dangling by wiring in the tank. Fortunately very easy to access in this car. I got a Z1 billet top hat and was able to retrofit the walbro 255 with minimal hassle. Here are some notes if you plan on either of these.

-wiring the new top hat connectors are easy, make sure you take a picture of the wiring on the old top hat on both the inside and the outside connector seeing as they are different layouts.

-when installing the 255 you’ll need a new oem fuel filter and fuel safe PTFE tape to friction fit the 255 inlet to the new filter. Most filters that come with any universal install kit will not fit in the oem basket. Be careful to ensure the tape doesn’t cover and part of the inlet.

-VERY IMPORTANT you will also need a check valve seeing as the check valve on the walbro 255 is either very weak or non existent. If you skip this you’ll have misfires on start up if you let it sit for a while because the like will depressurize which could cause a random misfire code and check engine light or it will have to turn over a few extra times to properly acquire fuel in the rail.

-also VERY IMPORTANT do not cut the fuel line that runs from the top hat to the fuel rail. The snap fitting fits the Z1 top hat. Learned this one the hard way but fortunately wasn’t an issue since I had to install a check valve anyways which allowed me to use a repair kit with a snap fitting to connect the line.

Didn’t see any tutorials so figured I’d share my experience.