Swirl Pot Set Up Motorsport UK Compliant
 

Hi,

I'll be fitting a swirl pot set up to my competition car and looking for advice on specific connectors and connections.

300LPH Inline Pump
1.5 Litre Swirl pot (push fittings)
(No filter as I don't see the point, with the fuel running through the filter in the engine bay anyway...)

Main Issues I see are:

You're not allowed to use stainless push on hose in the cockpit. (Rear Bulkhead sealing plate might solve this?)
I need to use a 3/8" female quick connector to attach to the fuel sender feed pipe and then run a line to the swirl pot. (low pressure so not a huge issue)
If I was to change to AN fittings I still have the problem of the return line on the sender being a push fit connection, so I can't use teflon s/s braided lines/fitting to connect to that.

Any help is appreciated, as at the moment it's not looking like a simple, easy or cheap set up and more importantly safe!

Thanks

Don't do the dumbass thing and fit the swirl pot in the engine bay, boot mounted so it doesn't boil the fuel.

It will not be in the engine bay, that is a dumbass thing to do. It'll be boot mounted :thumb:

Use #6 fittings and hose then you should be okay as these can run through the cabin.
Can you not get a swirl pot that utilises these type of fittings.

Your best bet would be to speak to a stockist of #6 fittings to see what is available for your application.

If the pot is fed by a reasonable pump, then as there will be WAY more fuel going between the tank and the pot than what the engine consumes even at full throttle. I.e it won't be doing any boiling, because it won't be sat in the tank for long enough to boil.

Also, it moves a potential fire hazard from the boot (or actually it sounds like we're talking about the cabin here) to the back of the engine bay (e.g. to the bulk head on the passenger side). This is probably THE safest location in the whole car.

Try telling that to the cars that end up running lean because of it. If you have to start worry about how long the fuel is there for then you have serious setup issues as you are not always at full chat. How much flow rate does there need to be to stop it from happening? how long can the fuel stay in there before it starts to boil?

The fire hazzard risk of a swirl pot is debatabley rather limited. As an item they are very strong (assuming your not using a cheap one), should they be punctured there isn't a permanent ignition source like a hot engine for them to spill out onto. In the event of a crash with the fuel lines still running from the back the risk increase it limited if at all.

Other option of course is a fuel cell with inbuilt swirl pot ;)

as Henrik said the is a huge re-circulation of fuel back to the tank via the normal return to tank pipe, so the fuel in the swirlpot is constantly changing, much more than normal due to the 044 bosch which is the most used for these set-ups.
Trev

Well if that's what you think carry on, i have seen 3 cars with the same issues in recent times so they must be an abnormality.

All though thinking about it, they were road cars, not race cars.

It may be design, on mine there are 4 ports, (1) inlet from tank, (2) outlet to bosch44, then (3) inlet from regulator (4) outlet back to tank. The swirlpot is a junction passing fuel in and back out.
Trev

my swirl pot is in the bay where the fuel filter used to be ,, seen loads set up like this without any problems , Litchfield sell a swirl pot to fit in this exact place,, would rather it ws in the bay as there isn't any rear fire wall and id rather have it in the bay where there is extinguishers not in the boot where there isn't any

There's nothing dumbass about fitting swirl pots under the bonnet. It's a sealed bulkhead and far better to house fuel than the boot which is sealed off from the cabin by just a bit of foam padding.
Unless you use Teflon braided lines on the whole setup they always end up allowing fuel fumes to enter the cabin and you lose boot space.
For me the placement is a no brainer and in my experience, any issues with fuel boiling can be attributed to extensive periods of dyno work and not enough cooling off periods.
I've had a car here recently where someone in their wisdom relocated one of our under bonnet setups to the boot after suffering from this on the dyno. They relocated it to the boot and fitted a second 044 pump to support just over 500bhp. What they failed to do was to stage the fuel pumps so both pumps were running all the time and guess what? It boiled the damn fuel anyway under the same scenario so nothing was improved by moving it from where it was. We've been supplying and fitting our under bonnet systems for years now and I'm happy to report that we've had no issues on the open road.

I am going to have to eat my own words a bit... the plan was to fit the swirl pot in the boot and completely seal the rear bulkhead rally style, I simply don't have the time to do this anymore, along with the fact, the connections are currently a pain in the ass to do safely and Motorsport UK compliant, plus they cost a bloody fortune.
So it's going in the engine bay, fuel temperature has never been a concern as like you say once you're moving airflow will cool the area anyway.

Thanks for your reply.