Time for an update on the fuel system.
I’ve had the repop 3/8 stainless steel fuel line mounted on the car for a while now. Why 3/8”? Everything I read said that for a fuel injected engine there is no reason to upgrade to 1/2 unless you are at 700 hp or something. All the new super high performance cars (Corvette ZR1, etc.) only have a 3/8 line and they are well over 500 hp. Back at the tank I found a good place to connect to the hard line and cut it a little short. It's meant to go around to the drivers side of the tank and so I basically cut it on a nice straight area right in front of the center of the tank.
From the Hot Rod City garage tank the fittings are 3/8 NPT, so I used a NPT to -6 AN adapter. For flexible lines I used -6 Aeroquip Teflon (PTFE) hoses. The guys on pro-touring.com found this place:
http://aeroquip.cc/index.aspx They sell the teflon hose in both the Aeroquip race FBC line and in the industrial S-TW line. Folks have confirmed that it's the exact same hose but the industrial S-TW line is half the price. The fittings interchange as well. So I used the S-TW hose for the fuel lines and the power steering lines. The fittings are actually the expensive parts and they start to add up after a while.
From the tank the hoses run to a Corvette C5 (1997 – 2005) filter/regulator (Wix 33737). It’s a fuel filter and pressure regulator all in one, and it’s meant to mount back at the tank. It’s probably the single best part GM has ever designed and its cheap
So I’m up to 2 Ford parts and 1 GM part on the car
For the outlet of the filter I used a Russell 3/8" FI male quick connect to -6AN (PN 640940) - $13.99. For the inlet and the return you can use Russell female quick connects to -6 AN but some folks have had problems with them.
For basically the same price I used Swagelok Part number SS-600-6-6AN to connect to the 3/8" inlet and Swagelok SS-500-6-6AN for the 5/16" return line. The Swageloks are super easy to work with (no tube flare is used…you just put them on and tighten them down) and are supposed to be good for 1000's of PSI. I bought 3 of the SS-600-6-6ANs. One for the fuel filter inlet, one to connect to the 3/8 hard line at the rear and one to connect to the 3/8 hard line at the front. To me the Swageloks were worth it instead of having to mess with flaring the SS hard line and using tube nuts, etc. I highly recommend them!
Here’s what the Swagelok’s look like:
Here’s the Corvette fuel filter/regulator:
I had to notch the shock crossmember for clearance. It was going to be way too tight to try and get a fitting on there. You can see the notch in the pictures. There is also surprisingly little room to put the Corvette fuel filter back there. I scratched my head for a while trying to figure out where to put it (there's no good place on the frame rail). I kept trying to put it on the passenger side in the shock crossmember but there was no good place to connect to the hard line. Finally I put it on the drivers side in the shock crossmember and looped the lines around. This allowed me enough service loop to make the bends I needed. The only thing I'm worried about it exhaust clearance, but I’ll figure that out when the exhaust shows up. There is room to mount it up higher (I just used an existing hole), plus I might fabricate a heat shield for it if the exhaust is close.
At the front of the car I bent the hard line to come up at the back of the motor instead of the front. I attached the hard line to the firewall and from there I ran the Teflon hose to the fuel rails.
Finally I found some heater hoses with 90 bends and mounted those as well. It gets a little crowded back there but you can still get to all the fittings.
Travis
72 Cuda
