I've been thinking about swapping up my fuel pump stuff and wanted to bounce the thoughts off of you. I have little experience with E85 and i'm thinking about trying it on my Lincoln. Right now i'm tuned on a 93 and 110 mix, to about 100-102 octane. Makes 570 wheel. I've got an AEM 340 in tank pump. Stock Lincoln tank. 80lb SD injectors. Stock lines and rails. Holley HP. Hope that covers the bases.....

Couple of things i'm thinking. One of them is to possibly PWM the pump(s). Last year during the Hot Rod Power Tour I "broke down" twice due to boiling the fuel. I've added heat sleeving since then some of the metal lines in the engine room. But I digress... I still think PWM would be helpful to keep that problem under control.

Other thing is to swap to a bigger pump that can cover E85 at the power i'm making now. I don't think my current pump is rated for E. I don't know what pump to run, I'm guessing Hellcat, but I don't know.

I've always had fuel slosh issues so I'd also like to put a Holley Fuel Mat on the pump. My setup requires the pump to sit at an angle, so I think that would help. As it is now it starves under accel at under 1/2 tank.

Hoping the TTF brain trust can help me think through this.

 

There are multiple methods to run fuel lines and most people run the lines so the fuel enters the engine bay then whatever doesn't get used is returned back to the tank. The problem then is that the fuel gets heated and that heated fuel is returned to the tank. The best solution is to return the fuel to the tank before it enters the engine bay except for what the engine needs.

Here's a great thread on a good way to run the lines along with some test results:

https://www.modularfords.com/threads/dead-head-return-fuel-setup-or-no.243993/#post-2171369

The different methods are shown in the diagram with the top one being the desired routing which is what I did where the FPR is mounted in the front fender under the headlight.
The dashed line is an optional idea to connect both fuel rails helping to equalize the pulsation which I did.

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ks

 

E85 will help with the boiling problem, Race gas boils around 135° e85 will get you up to ≈170° (depending on the E content, there are fewer addatives in Eblends, so it almost always does better with boiling). It may be possible to run a small cooler in your fuel return line. Cool fuel makes power.

On pumps, for your power Walbro F90000274 is a good deal, specified for E85, 450lph, <$100. The hellcat pump is rated at 470lph, flex fuel, but costs a bit more. I think Holley pumps are rebranded walbro's. They are all probably made by TI automotive now.

Fuel controller could help the boiling problem, but you may not need it if you can get E85 going. Did you happen to notice the availability of E on power tour? If it isn't good you might end up wanting a larger fuel cell, or trailer a drum.

 

The things to look out for is that some of the 450 pumps from TI Automotive:

1. Do not have check valves inside so using multiple pumps with these could cause back feed issues.
2. One has a built-in bypass that does NOT allow the pump to produce more than 63psi of fuel pressure.

There is a 450 (p/n F90000267) and there is a 450 "high Pressure" (p/n F90000274) which is made for high boost applications and will be capable of 100+psi of fuel pressure. The "standard" 450 will bleed off pressure so won't be capable of 100+psi of fuel pressure only 63psi max.

The Hellcat pump p/n F90000285 does have a check valve and it "looks" like p/n F90000274 does too but I couldn't confirm it. I tried calling TI Automotive to get the real answer from them but the phone number listed on their site was a dead number and wouldn't go through.

I now have three Hellcat pumps installed waiting for a new dyno day in March.

ks

 

This of course would require a new fuel system, under hood at a minimum. Although I suspect that I've got to be nearing the limits of the stock 5/16 lines as it is. Needing an additional 30% volume won't help.

 

It may not be that complicated, just some additional tubing to route elsewhere but it would eliminate additional heating of the fuel where the PWM may not.

ks

 

NO, not complicated, but i'm still on stock lines and rails so at a minimum we're talking about aftermarket rails and regulator.

 

I’ve been using e85 for race cars for 17 years now. Here’s what I’ve found and would suggest.

1. Stay away from “in tank” pumps. They are amp hogs and rarely put out their rated flow at any type of “normal” turbo EFI pressures. Also a giant pain to mess with if they fail, pickups become uncovered, etc etc. Its just a poor design for a race car IMO. You want something that easily accessible and quickly changed if needed.
   
   2.) Staged external pumps are the way to go. Esp when working with something like a drag week style. Run identical pumps so if one fails its super easy to replace.
   
   3.) AEM400’s offer the biggest bang for your buck. Cruise around on one, have another kick on when needed. 2 AEM400 will out flow a Magnaful 4303 and are cheaper. Will supply more than enough fuel for what you are doing.
   
   4.) if you don’t use a sump on the tank. Use a small factory intank pump to fill a surge tank. Mount the 2 AEM400’s off the surge tank. This eliminates all the starvation issues. I ran my regulator at the surge tank in the trunk.
   
   5.) Run a large enough supply and return. -10 line isn’t much more than -8. At minimum I’d want -8 supply and return.

6.) Use a good high flowing filter. I find the golden rod 595 or equivalent spin-on agricultural filters flow a ton filter to 10 micron and are super cheap.

 

dang! I like that gold rod filter setup as an option. waaayyy cheaper than the good aftermarket filters
I see it has a working pressure of 50 psi. Have you had any issue with efi pressures?

 

Yes, ran these strictly in all my cars since 2006. 80+psi. I even tried to blow one up or deform it with 120+ of shop air. It didn't phase it. I am guessing filtration may suffer slightly? Either way I cut them open yearly and have never had an issue... many cars over many years...

CIMTEK is the other brand they sell at the local tractor supply. Just make sure you don't get the ones that absorb water.

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Closing the loop on this thread. I ended buying the pump B E N recommended. Got it from Fore as a kit. Got a Holley Fuel mat pickup for it. That cost almost twice as much as the pump. I put some heat sleeves over the metal fuel lines in the engine room. I added a flex sensor and plumbed it in with PTFE lines. Results were 95% successful.
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The only issue I had was while sitting in a 2 hour long traffic jam the car just shut off. I have the fuel pressure on my Holley pro dash so I could see that was the problem. I assumed it was vapor lock like lasylt year. But cooling didn't help this time. Ended up getting a tow up the road about 1/4 mile, boring a jack, borrowed some jack stands, and dropped the tank. The problem was where the stock power leads come through the hat. The rivet on the positive wire had got hot and loosened. I used a hammer and extension to squish it back and never had another problem. That also fixed a very random stall issue I had up until that point.

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Nice Sherlock Holmes work on the electrical issue!

ks

 

Some say you need at least 10 gauge wire to a high volume pump. I ran a wire from the battery to a relay and used the stock wire to trigger the relay. I drilled out the rivets and ran the 10 ga. power wire straight to the pump.

 

You can get away with a short run of a smaller gauge to go through the cable glands at the fuel hat without any trouble. Running something heavier for the length of the vehicle is good though, drop in a relay right next to the pump and trigger it from your source ground. That will help minimize the voltage drop but allow you to keep the factory sealing glands.

 

That's what I have now. I will get another hanger and find some new pass through connections and make the whole thing 10ga to the pump, which is like 14 or 16ga.