Fuel Tank Question

[Tony K]

So due to the new chassis design this year, I am forced to design a tank which is not very tall and uber-wide. To ensure fuel delivery at all times through corners, the tank will have dual sumps with 2 pickups feeding a single internal pump. In a previous post it was mentioned that at least one team was using fuel "pods" from snowmobiles that sealed up if they became un-submerged, thus preventing the fuel pump from sucking air. Does anyone know what snowmobiles use this sort of pickup? Anyone else use another type of valve in a dual pickup system?

[Jay Fleming]

I dont know the feesability of this, but can you not design a swinging pickup, kinda like on drag race cars? That way when you turn the pickup will swing over to where the fuel is?

[Chris Boyden]

Yea, this is known as a Clunk pickup. It's just a piece of hose with a brass weight on the end of it. The brass weight follows g's and the fuel. This would also work if your car ever needed to go upside down in a hot wheels loop.

[Travis R]

Or you could skip all of that and just put some fuel cell foam in there. We've run wide and short tanks with foam for the last few years and can run the cars almost dry before starvation becomes an issue.
Now welding up the tank with the foam already in there... that's a whole other trick you'll have to figure out on your own. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif

[Chris Boyden]

Yea, but what happens when you go upside down? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

The fuel foam is really easy to compress and stuff in after welding. It's really easy if the tank has a bulkhead for fittings that is large enough to stick your hand in.

[Tony K]

Yea, I did fuel foam last year, and I spec'ed the access opening to be able to fit my hand in (about 3.25") so that worked well. I was planning on using it again in conjunction with the dual sumps, but to be honest, the only time I've ever used it was last year, so I'm not exactly sure to what degree it works. Plus, this year I'm having to decrease the opening size to 2.75"... so I guess I'll have to talk one of the girls I know into helping me stuff fuel foam into the tank.

[Colin]

Be a bit careful with the fuel foam, this year we had a few surge issues so i pulled the tank apart and found the foam was impeding the flow of fuel to our pickup pot, don't get me wrong fuel foam does seem to work all I'm saying is think about were you are putting it in the tank don't just try and put as much foam as you can into the tank as you can. We put our tanks under the driver's knee's, so our tanks are very wide and short and we have found that with careful baffling, and a small pickup pot, surge can be avoided

[Dan B]

Never used them but...
http://store.summitracing.com/default.asp?target=partdetail.asp?part=HLY-12-951

[Tony K]

Awesome... that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Dan, that helps a ton.