Fuel pump plastic casing, is it necessary?

[Tomer.S]

Hi there,

I a trying to minimize the weight and size of the fuel pump and tank assembly.
We are using an in-tank fuel pump and it is enclosed within a plastic case (known as the "fuel pump module" if I'm not mistaken) that is taking a lot of space (not volume) inside the tank.
I wanted to ask if there is any function for this plastic casing besides housing the electric board for the fuel gauge (which we are not using anyway), the pump fuel filter and some other minor unnecessary parts. In other words, can I just use the bare fuel pump itself without the plastic casing?

Thanks in advance,
Tomer Segev,
BGRacing,
Ben-gurion University, Israel.

[jrickert]

In some applications it acts as a buffer tank. The fuel return flow is sometimes used to power a jet pump which keeps the buffer full. I owned a car that did this once but im not sure how common it is. It helps combat fuel slosh with slosh prone tank shapes.

[Tomer.S]

Thank you for the reply. A more specific concern I have is what will happen with the electrical wiring of the pump if it sits "naked" in the tank. Any thoughts?

[Jay Lawrence]

If the wires are shielded properly (i.e. with heat shrink or similar) so that the bare wire is not exposed to fuel, it's fine. We never ran a fuel pump with a cover over it, but we did use shielded wires (the team have gone to a heavier external pump now). This could mean that you will have to punch a hole in your fuel tank somewhere through which your wires run (for power/ground connection) and this hole will need to be sealed effectively.

[Tomer.S]

Thank you very much for the help.
I will give it a try and feedback on how it went.