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Fuel System |
Ruth's comments |
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The fuelling it all
pretty much as per the Yamaha engine. A new fuel pump will need to be sourced
and fuel lines plumbed under the chassis. The fuel tank is mounted up front.
I asked Zcars to build a slightly bigger fuel tank than standard. Experience
from the Tiger told me that 27litres(
5.5gal) is too small. Chris reckons he can get an extra couple of gallons
fairly easily, and siad to make a cardboard mockup and they would build it.
This would extend the range so I shouldn’t be constantly looking for a petrol
station. I bought a Ford
Focus fuel filter from ebay, and a Rover V8/ Bosch injection pump, It does
the nicely. A mock up of the
tank was made from cardboard, which got a few laughs when anyone came to have
a look at the project progress – “that will leak yer know”. The design should
give a good range, with baffle foam fitted it should hold 9 gallons, giving
almost double the range of the Tiger’s tank. Chris’s words were
along the line of “bloody hell, that’s a big one….will it fit under the
bonnet” . Simon at Z-cars had some fun and games building it by all accounts,
but it did fit under the bonnet. It did take a bit of fitting though, card
board flexes to fir past the servo where as the tank didn’t. It only meant
loosening off the servo mounting bolts so that the tank could squeeze past. Plumbing was fairly
straight forward. I used the existing Mini fuel line as a return. I just
flared either end and fitted a length of appropraite low pressure fuel hose.
The main run of the high pressure feed was done with copper/alloy ¼” pipe,
flared at either end with high pressure Gates 3225 hose which is good for
111psi according to the spec… the Yamaha regulator keeps the pressure at
40psi. The only tricky thing was fitting the pipe to the Yamaha fuel pipe
with its propriortory connector. I cut on connector off the Yamaha flexi
pipe, leaving the pipe insert bit in. This gave a sort of flared end to allow
a rubber Gates hose to fit and clamp onto it. The only further complcation is
I had to step up in hose size from the end of my copper tube fitted with 6mm
hose to 8mm that I needed to fit over the Yamaha pipe. A suitable 8mm to 6mm
male to male was bought for a couple of quid that did that job nicely. I wanted the tank as
safe as possible, the way to do that is to fill it with baffle foam. This
stuff is what competition tanks are filled with. It’s a very open cell sponge
which allows the fuel to flow slowly through it. Should the tank rupture,
fuel seeps out rather than flooding out. During cornering, the fuel slowly
moves about the tank, rather than sloshing one way and the the other. It isn’t
cheap though… £40 for a 28litre block…ouch! Its easy to fit, I just cut it
into blocks and squeezed it through the filler hole. The filler cap I
went for is a Mocal aero one, caps always seem expensive for what they are.
It should raise a few eyebrows at the filling station when somebody spots me
lifting the Mini bonnet and filling her up. |
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