AJ's American Iron 99 Mustang road race build. Surge tank install

[OBEEWON]

Good job man. That is a true test of skill, rain driving. I'm sure you were exhausted afterwards. The concentration is unreal.

[camopaint0707]

this is a seriously awesome mustang.

[rocknrace03]

I used to LOVE the nights where it poured at the track leaving the oval a messy mud pit. while every ones running the inside grove just trying to hang on, i was on the top side dead sideways having a ball. Love that you build everything yourself and have great results, can't wait to get back into a race car after college

[PhillyLS1]

That AJ Hartmen, he's so hot right now

[AJ Hartman]

So anyone who has ever tracked a Mustang knows about fuel starvation when you get low(ish) fuel levels in the stock tank. Depending on the turn and grip levels, it can be anywhere from 1/4 to sometimes close to a 1/2 tank as was in my case. This meant I would have to start a race with pretty close to a full tank to assure I wouldn't get starvation towards the end. I didn't want to go the fuel cell route so opted for a surge tank. I ended up going with a Radium Engineering piece. If your not quite sure what a surge tank is and how it works here is a link. Radium Engineering - Tech Articles. I looked around online and couldn't find much about surge tanks, especially on return-less fuel systems.

So below are some pictures of my install for my specific application. It was fairly straight forward especially if you get the OEM style connectors that adapt directly to AN threads. The tricky bits were running the return line and making sure it empties back into the stock tanks "catch pot" and swapping the OEM pump into the surge tank.

Here is the rough mounting a layout of the surge tank. The fuel pressure gauge was later moved to the bulkhead at the firewall.


OEM pump next to Walbro 255lph pump. Some modification needed to be made to the OEM pump setup in the stock tank. This pumps only purpose is to now feed the surge tank and a whole circuit needed to be ran to run this pump. The OEM pump and wiring were installed in and ran to the surge tank.


OEM pump mounted to the Radium surge tank top hat.


Aeromotive fittings to adapt easily to OEM fuel filter and fuel line in the engine bay.




Final setup complete. I added some heat shield to the floor so it doesn't bake inside the box from the exhaust. I built a firewall and lid around the complete setup for obvious safety reasons. Wiring was straight forward. The car now knows no difference how it is getting fuel. I just finished my first event with it and absolutely love it. I was able to run the car down to less than 1 gallon left in the OEM tank and rolled across scales about 40lbs lighter than I have ever been! The extra length in the surge tank feed line is so I can disconnect it, run it to a fuel jug, and empty the stock tank to nothing and just add what I need for a race. I installed a fuel pump over ride switch for this.