If I plan to run boost no higher than 20-21psi, is a fuel pump necessary for cam upgrade...

 

I would get one the stock fuel pump can fail. and for 100 bucks u cant go wrong

 

hey man dont forget the fule regulater with the fule pump

 

I have had no problems with the stock FP and 264 cams managed by a Works P2 flash @19psi. I have about 12k of abuse on this current set up.

 

If i had the chance to do it again I'd most likely just pick up a fuel pressure gauge myself over the "whinebro". At the powerlevel you will be at I'd most likely still do the fuel pump upgrade but theres a definite trade off involved. To me the pump noise makes the car less livable, I hear it over my exhaust, on the other hand its definitely a simple and cheap safety upgrade. I'd most likely invest in a stopgap tuning measure and monitor things for a while, but be prepared to replace the pump as it may be necessary.

 

Are they that noisey, vishnu said you can barely hear it with the seat off and the tank open

 

I've heard alot of complaints too but like Vishnu I can't hear my Walbro pump.

As far as upgrading the pump for cams, it's probably not necessary. Regardless, what you really need to monitor is injector duty cycle. Once you start creeping up above 85-90% IDC you should probably be looking at larger injectors and subsequently a larger fuel pump.

My own personal experience with high injector duty cycles has been with a Buschur Stage 3. With that set up I was seeing IDCs in the 95-100% range. Not good. Installing the fuel pump and 660s I saw IDCs drop into a much safer 70% range.

Note: You can't effectively measure IDCs using an ODB2 logger. It really needs to be done using a standalone logger that measures the actual injector pulse width in msecs. This value along with the cooresponding engine speed will allow you to calculate the injector duty cycle.

 

It matters what kinda tuning your gonna get with ur cams. I have works 269 cams which are a lil more aggressive than 264's and am still on the stock fuel pump with my P2 reflash. With some other tuners you'll need to upgrade the fuel pump.