purchasing injection tank or modifying existing one?

[John Gaines]

I currently have a Zetec with swirl pot and high pressure fuel pump in the engine bay. I am not so keen on all the extra plumbing and a spare 2 litres of petrol sitting in front of me. The question is can I modify the original tank to take a high pressure pump or would it just be easier to put an injection tank in. What are the cost implications of an injection tank? Has anyone here modified their tank?

Thanks John.

[Nigel Fox]

Ditch the swirl pot and low pressure pump. Fit the high pressure pump adjacent the existing tank ensuring you have a positive suction head(pump inlet below tank outlet). Fit return pipe to tank instead of swirl pot.

If you suffer from fuel starvation modify the tank by baffling/box round the outlet pipe to ensure some fuel is always held there. I suspect you won't need to do this.

My Zetec is set up like this although I only use a small sprint tank which will reduce fuel starvation.

[keybaud]

Quoting John Gaines: 

I currently have a Zetec with swirl pot and high pressure fuel pump in the engine bay. I am not so keen on all the extra plumbing and a spare 2 litres of petrol sitting in front of me. The question is can I modify the original tank to take a high pressure pump or would it just be easier to put an injection tank in. What are the cost implications of an injection tank? Has anyone here modified their tank?

Thanks John.

 

The fact the first pump will be changed from low to high pressure is not the issue you have, unless you want a built-in pump inside the tank. It's whether your tank has an injection return. Does your swirl pot have a return to the tank already? If it doesn't, does your tank have a blanked off return? i.e. You may not need a different tank.

 

Edited by - keybaud on 3 Feb 2013 19:57:50

[Nigel Fox]

Any connections to the fuel tank, either suction or return, can be done with readily available fittings, you don't need to change the tank.

[AMMO]

I've run all three and would say that the stock Caterham fuel injection tank is probably best.

 

I ran a low pressure pump, swirl pot and high pressure pump on my Zetec. It performed really well but I didn't like having two pumps. More weight, twice as many things to go wrong, swirl pot, etc. When I switched to Duratec I modified a stock carburettor tank to take an external pump, thinking that if it went wrong I could easily replace the pump. Although the tank had baffling it would surge on corners when the tank was a quarter full. I could have done more work to the baffling on the converted carb tank but in the end the Caterham fuel injection tank works fine so I opted for that.

 

Hope this helps.

[Richard K]

John,

Mic has just posted one in the 'for sale'.

You could then off set the cost by selling yours.

 

Just a thought 😬

Richard

[John Gaines]

Many thanks for the replies.

My swirl pot does have a return to the tank so that is not a problem. Reading the replies I get the impression that I could place my high pressure pump ( currently at the side of the engine) next to the fuel tank rather than use an internal one? What fittings would I need on a solid fuel line as it would be running at a high pressure?