Guys,
Finally decided to do something about percolation issues I have experienced with my 65 fuelie. As a rule I do like to drive my car and as a rule I don't drive it when the temps are really hot. More of a personal choice as I am a wussie and I like air conditioning! There have been a handful of times where I have been out with the car and it got to be a hot day and have experienced the typical percolation issues common with fuel cars. Granted this issue happens more with today's ethanol fuels then back in the day, there were still issues back then even with higher octane fuels and no ethanol. This has been discussed at length on the TDB. I also know that there are two very well respected fuel injection gurus that visit here and really do not like running ethanol in the fuel units. Big proponents of using racing fuel. These guys truly are the best at what they do and I value their advice immensely. However the cost of race fuel and the availability here in California make it so it's hard to drive the car on a regular basis. The hoops you have to jump thru to get leaded race fuel here are unbelievable. Read on for my results.
I ordered some DEI 1/2" aluminized sheath sleeve material from Amazon last week for my fuel lines. Comes in 3' lengths which is plenty. Cheap too. It is a completely sealed tube, no Velcro. Had to take the fuel lines (there are 2 on these units, one from fuel pump to filter and one from filter to the fuel bowl). Turns out I could have gotten away with not completely removing the fuel line down at the pump, but per usual I did it the hard way. So I tackled this on Saturday. Took me half hour or a little more. Sleeve material is not easy to get on over the nuts and around the bends but can be done. Did not drive the car on Saturday as we were getting ready to go to the Route 66 restaurant cruise in with the black 67 which has air conditioning! Took the car out yesterday afternoon. Temperature outside was 102 coming down slowly from a high of 106! Drove the car on about a 20 mile loop after warming it up. No percolation issues with Union 76 91 octane ethanol fuel. Even let it idle when I got home. Although that was in the shade it was still over 100 degrees. I wanted to let it idle and heat up some to the point of percolation. Granted the hood was open which I am sure makes a difference. I monitored the temp gage and the coolant temperature at the thermostat which surprisingly were within a few degrees of each other. After 15 minutes at idle the temp had climbed to 230 degrees F. I also monitored the fuel temperature at the fuel bowl. I had done this last year on a 90 degree day and recorded fuel temps in the 165-170 degree range at which point I started having percolation issues and the car died. This time on a hotter day, the fuel inlet temperature stayed in a 145-150 degree range. The insulation dropped the temperature a full 20 degrees! At the 230 degrees I chickened out and shut the car off. I was comfortable with the results I had achieved. The one observation of note at that temperature was that it did not idle as smoothly as it would at a normal temperature on a mild day. But it still idled. Previously when the fuel would start percolating (I believe in the spider assy) I would have to keep the rpm's up to about 2,500 to keep the car from dying. Hopefully no longer!
I know this fix has been discussed here before, I just thought I would show my results. I can't even guarantee that everyone will get the same results as me. However, for around 20 bucks and a few minutes it is sure worth the try! So far I am happy with them. The sleeving is ugly and I don't like the way it looks but I will live with it until my next National which is in Vegas 2018. There I will be going for my second 97 point score to complete my Duntov try.
Finally decided to do something about percolation issues I have experienced with my 65 fuelie. As a rule I do like to drive my car and as a rule I don't drive it when the temps are really hot. More of a personal choice as I am a wussie and I like air conditioning! There have been a handful of times where I have been out with the car and it got to be a hot day and have experienced the typical percolation issues common with fuel cars. Granted this issue happens more with today's ethanol fuels then back in the day, there were still issues back then even with higher octane fuels and no ethanol. This has been discussed at length on the TDB. I also know that there are two very well respected fuel injection gurus that visit here and really do not like running ethanol in the fuel units. Big proponents of using racing fuel. These guys truly are the best at what they do and I value their advice immensely. However the cost of race fuel and the availability here in California make it so it's hard to drive the car on a regular basis. The hoops you have to jump thru to get leaded race fuel here are unbelievable. Read on for my results.
I ordered some DEI 1/2" aluminized sheath sleeve material from Amazon last week for my fuel lines. Comes in 3' lengths which is plenty. Cheap too. It is a completely sealed tube, no Velcro. Had to take the fuel lines (there are 2 on these units, one from fuel pump to filter and one from filter to the fuel bowl). Turns out I could have gotten away with not completely removing the fuel line down at the pump, but per usual I did it the hard way. So I tackled this on Saturday. Took me half hour or a little more. Sleeve material is not easy to get on over the nuts and around the bends but can be done. Did not drive the car on Saturday as we were getting ready to go to the Route 66 restaurant cruise in with the black 67 which has air conditioning! Took the car out yesterday afternoon. Temperature outside was 102 coming down slowly from a high of 106! Drove the car on about a 20 mile loop after warming it up. No percolation issues with Union 76 91 octane ethanol fuel. Even let it idle when I got home. Although that was in the shade it was still over 100 degrees. I wanted to let it idle and heat up some to the point of percolation. Granted the hood was open which I am sure makes a difference. I monitored the temp gage and the coolant temperature at the thermostat which surprisingly were within a few degrees of each other. After 15 minutes at idle the temp had climbed to 230 degrees F. I also monitored the fuel temperature at the fuel bowl. I had done this last year on a 90 degree day and recorded fuel temps in the 165-170 degree range at which point I started having percolation issues and the car died. This time on a hotter day, the fuel inlet temperature stayed in a 145-150 degree range. The insulation dropped the temperature a full 20 degrees! At the 230 degrees I chickened out and shut the car off. I was comfortable with the results I had achieved. The one observation of note at that temperature was that it did not idle as smoothly as it would at a normal temperature on a mild day. But it still idled. Previously when the fuel would start percolating (I believe in the spider assy) I would have to keep the rpm's up to about 2,500 to keep the car from dying. Hopefully no longer!
I know this fix has been discussed here before, I just thought I would show my results. I can't even guarantee that everyone will get the same results as me. However, for around 20 bucks and a few minutes it is sure worth the try! So far I am happy with them. The sleeving is ugly and I don't like the way it looks but I will live with it until my next National which is in Vegas 2018. There I will be going for my second 97 point score to complete my Duntov try.
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