phate
Motorhead
It's a problem with both the MS3 and MS6 - fuel starve under various conditions. If you have a high powered drag car, you'll suck the basket dry. If you have lots of lateral grip, you'll starve the basket if you're running low on fuel. Either way, fuel starve is a problem for many of us.
Option 1) Run a surge tank/swap in a fuel cell. Fine solution for lots of people, and they aren't terribly expensive. If you don't live by a rulebook, this is a great solution.
Option 2) Holley Hydramat. That's what we'll be talking about here.
Check out this video if you don't know what it is: Link
My rule set doesn't allow surge tanks, so that's out. It does allow fuel cells, but they have to be located within 6" of the original fuel cell location and can't be much smaller than original. With the stock tank being low in the car and made of plastic, it's in a good location and is already very lightweight. We've been running it full for pretty much forever to prevent fuel starve - 16 gallons of fuel is heavy. I'm hoping we can start events with 3-4 gallons of fuel, which would lighten the car by ~70lbs. That's huge.
On to the actual work - Pull the fuel tank and figure out where the hydramats need to go.
MS6 fuel tank layout:
With the pump being at the forward position of the tank, and only on the driver's side, it's easy to see where the problem comes in. I'm going to focus on two areas, though, since it's a saddle tank. Acceleration and turning in either direction puts fuel in the rearmost corners:
The saddle tank drives a need to pick up fuel from either corner, so I'll be using two hydramats. You can bend these things around a bit, so I want them to wrap up onto the sides of the fuel tank. I decided to use two of the 15x15" hydramats, sort of like this:
Sort of like this:
Keeping it secured in that location is pretty easy. You can do this two ways, and I'll be doing it both ways. Holley makes little magnet adapters that sandwich the tank. These magnets are incredible strong:
Hydramats have attachment holes on the corners:
What that looks like on the inside and outside:
I will also be adding foam into the tank for two reasons - 1) securing the hydramat and making sure it stays pushed into the rearmost corner. 2) Help prevent fuel slosh. Big box of foam:
I'll talk about the fuel pump and plumbing situation in the next post.
Option 1) Run a surge tank/swap in a fuel cell. Fine solution for lots of people, and they aren't terribly expensive. If you don't live by a rulebook, this is a great solution.
Option 2) Holley Hydramat. That's what we'll be talking about here.
Check out this video if you don't know what it is: Link
My rule set doesn't allow surge tanks, so that's out. It does allow fuel cells, but they have to be located within 6" of the original fuel cell location and can't be much smaller than original. With the stock tank being low in the car and made of plastic, it's in a good location and is already very lightweight. We've been running it full for pretty much forever to prevent fuel starve - 16 gallons of fuel is heavy. I'm hoping we can start events with 3-4 gallons of fuel, which would lighten the car by ~70lbs. That's huge.
On to the actual work - Pull the fuel tank and figure out where the hydramats need to go.
MS6 fuel tank layout:
With the pump being at the forward position of the tank, and only on the driver's side, it's easy to see where the problem comes in. I'm going to focus on two areas, though, since it's a saddle tank. Acceleration and turning in either direction puts fuel in the rearmost corners:
The saddle tank drives a need to pick up fuel from either corner, so I'll be using two hydramats. You can bend these things around a bit, so I want them to wrap up onto the sides of the fuel tank. I decided to use two of the 15x15" hydramats, sort of like this:
Sort of like this:
Keeping it secured in that location is pretty easy. You can do this two ways, and I'll be doing it both ways. Holley makes little magnet adapters that sandwich the tank. These magnets are incredible strong:
Hydramats have attachment holes on the corners:
What that looks like on the inside and outside:
I will also be adding foam into the tank for two reasons - 1) securing the hydramat and making sure it stays pushed into the rearmost corner. 2) Help prevent fuel slosh. Big box of foam:
I'll talk about the fuel pump and plumbing situation in the next post.
