Hi all,

I just wanted to post some findings I came up with regarding the Fuel Pressure Regulator used in the 1988 B230F. It relates to this thread posted many years ago: http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=869074

I have an ’88 740 GLE Non-Turbo. It uses the one year only Bosch number 0 280 160 292. I went to the junkyard recently and pulled a nice fuel pressure regulator off of a later model 740, deciding that I would figure out the details later.

Well, I was looking through the Niehoff (http://www.niehoff.com/catalogs/nie_bgbulk.aspx) catalog, and noticed that both 21846 ( 0 280 160 292 equivalent ) and 21849 ( 0 280 160 294 equivalent ) had the same picture. So I called their tech line and played dumb, and he told me:

21846 runs at 34psi ( 2.32bar )

21849 runs at 36psi ( 2.45bar )

So, even though they are different, they are very close. Also, the 0 280 160 294 was used on many more common European cars, like BMWs and Volkswagens, increasing their availability in the junkyard.

I found a seal kit for the fuel rail, which includes the regulator seal, for about 13.00 dollars. So I started cracking boxes at the parts store, and found that Niehoff number 274571 matches the seal exactly. I contains 2 seals and costs about 2.00 dollars.

After install, I had to adjust the idle down a little bit, but nothing major. Otherwise the car runs fine. Theoretically I should have a little more power and a little worse gas mileage, but I haven’t noticed either.

-Steve