Surge
Tank
Since the first day I drove the '34 with the EFI
conversion I have been having this problem with right hand turns.
When the tank gets below a quarter full long sweeping right hand turns
will cause the fuel pickup in the tank to un-port. About 30 seconds
later the motor dies and won't re-start until the slug of air is purged
from the fuel system. Freeway on ramps are the worse with those long
sweeping turns. Very embarrassing to accelerate into traffic just
to slowly pull off the road waiting to re-vitalize the fuel system.
Well finally got fed up with this business and fixed it once and for all.....
Started with a Vacuum reservoir
from Summit. Same as I used in the brake system. Wouldn't hang
too far below the frame rails and gives me just over 2 quarts of fuel.
5 or 6 miles certainly should be enough to reacquire fuel flow. |
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To construct the lower pickup that would
feed the high pressure Mallory fuel pump I first welded a short length
of steel tubing to the AN-6 fitting. Did this to assure that when
I brazed the assembly in I would not re-flow this weld. Because this
lower pick-up was at the bottom of the tank the tank's radius would make
it very difficult to braze without something to fill the gap. |
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Installed it at the bottom of the
tank. You can see the radius I had to deal with. |
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Constructed the upper return
line pick-up so it would feed from as high in the tank as possible.
This will be the return to the main fuel tank. |
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Finished brazing on all the fittings
and plugging the original top holes. Had to make and use one 1/4" Pipe
thread bung because I did not have enough AN fittings to route the lines
the way I wanted. Got a fortune in AN fittings and still never have
enough on hand! A little powder coat in a can an it was done. |
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Used a Holley 'RED'
fuel pump as the low pressure feed pump from the main tank to the surge
tank. You can see that I had to get creative again with the AN fittings
to make everything work. It was a very tight squeeze getting this
pump mounted, so to get enough clearance I had to add the extra AN gauge
adapter to clear the frame members. |
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The clearance between
the frame rails was so tight I had to replace two of the original pump
cover plate screws with ones with flatter heads. Mr. Loctite took
care of assuring that they would never back out. |
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Mounted the Holley pump
on the opposite side of the frame rail from the Mallory high pressure pump.
You can see that it was a tight fit inside the channels of the frame rail. |
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Well, what a plumbing chore.
Hoses and pipes everywhere. This installation certainly does not
make the car simpler ! |
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A couple of blast tubes
that will direct some hopefully cooler air onto each fuel pump. Before
I installed the air duct the Mallory pump would run in the 150F degree
region. Couldn't touch it with your bare hands. |
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Well it seems to work well. No more starvation
going around long right hand turns. Something that probably still
needs to be done is to maybe reduce the voltage going to the feed pump.
The Holley pump is a vane type which works better under some pressure.
Without any head pressure it tends to surge and make some funny noises
in the feed fuel lines. Doesn't seem to generate any bubbles that
I can determine but pumping 97 GPH through the surge tank may be a
little excessive. Need to add some smarts to reduce the power during
normal operations and only apply full power when sucking air.