i have an 87 camaro, it was originally the carb'd 305 but now it has a 350 in it with a holley carburetor. ever since we put the 350 in it, it doesn't seem to have as much top end power as it should, it runs 13.30's in the 1/4 at only 98 mph but with low 1.70 60' times. it seems like about the time you shift into third gear (turbo 350) it just runs out of *****. it still had the stock mechanical pump on it so we decided to put a holley high volume mechanical pump on it to see if that helped any. then i was searching on here and found a few places that said all of the carbureted 87's had in-tank fuel pumps along with the mechanical. if this is the case, my intank one probably isn't working because we got rid of all the "extra" wires in the engine compartment and it probably would have had an oil pressure sensor or something i assume? i don't see any relays or fuses for it anywhere either, and i never hear it running. i will check tomorrow and see how many wires go into the tank and if there are 3 or 4 i'll try to jumper it and get the pump to run. do you think this could be the problem or if it wasn't getting enough fuel would that make it sputter and cut out and stuff? also, on the new fuel pump there was no return line so i just plugged my return line, is that the appropriate thing to do?

 

Yes, you should have an electric pump in the tank.

 

I believe the in-tank relies on the return line. So, either remove the in-line and keep the pump you have; get the in-line fixed and use a pump with a return; or fix the in-line and get a return-style regulator after the mechanical.

If you street drive the car, the return line helps prevent hot fuel (aka, "vapor lock"). But, then, the in-tank should be enough to prevent vapor lock - hot fuel is a different matter.

 

i checked it out and it has 3 wires going to the gas tank, underneath they are purple and black and i can't tell the other color for sure, they plug in and go inside behind the backseat and inside they're pink black and brown. the pink had like 8 volts or something so i figured that was for the gauge probably, and the black seemed to be the ground so i had tried jumpering power to the brown one but i never heard a pump run, which could be the problem though too, and in the fuse box there is a fuel pump fuse that says "fp/inj" and it has power to the fuse, does anyone have a wiring diagram or something? i'm pretty sure it would have had some kind of oil pressure switch, which if it did, it doesn't anymore so i don't know how it could have been working anyways. if i decide it does have one and its bad what would be the easiest way to fix it preferably without dropping the rearend and cutting the exhaust to drop the tank. can i just pull the carpet back and cut a hole in the floor above the gas tank or is the gas tank right up against the floor? i also thought about trying to put a fuel cell in the well in the back with all new lines and stuff and just leaving the old one as it is. also, if the electric pump wasn't working but the mechanical was, what effect would that have? i have one of those clear inline filters right before the mechanical pump, before, with the stock pump (with the return) it was always almost full, now when its running its basically empty and it kind of surges, like every couple seconds it will get a good shot through it and then stop, don't know if that makes sense or not probably not. do you think i would be better off to just put the stock mechanical pump back on it with the return line? anyways if anyone has any idea on any of this that would be cool because i never even realized it had an electric pump until just the other day and don't know much about it.