Right now, I'm trying to determine what to do with the fuel system. It was originally a fuel injected (V6), so the metal fuel lines come up the drivers side of the car. It's now a 5.7 V8. If I get a fuel regulator to allow me to continue using the electric fuel pump in the tank, will that completely eliminate the need for the mechanical pump on the bottom right side of the engine? Will the regulator allow as much pressure as the mech pump would produce, thus allowing the lines to go straight from the regulator to the carb?

 

I did the swap on my gta with tpi to carb. I put in a regulator to my new 350 and it leaked like crazy and never worked good. I got tired of it and took out the fuel pump and used a mechanical one and its been working great. If you want a problem free solution use the mechanical and rework the lines in the tank to suck without the electric pump. Good luck!

 

Yea figuring your going from 50 psi (or whatever it is for a tpi pump) to 5,6,or 7 psi for a carb the regulator would be way more than maxed out.

 

I run the mallory 3 port regulator from the stock 305 TPI pump to feed my carbed 350 now. No problems whatsoever with my fuel system. Make sure to get the 3 port (fuel return line) or you could burn the pump out. Not sure about the V6 pump, but the regulator works fine with my TPI pump.

 

How exactly do I rework the lines in the tank to suck without the electric pump? Can I just disconnect the electric plug on the side of the tank?

 

I think you have to drop the gas tank. I didnt' want to go through all that, so I just ran the regulator.

 

Well, you can stry to draw through the electric pump which a lot of people don't like to do even though some of the Fbodies had setups like this from the factory or you have to drop the tank.

When you drop the tank you pull the pickup out of the tank, take the pump off the end of the pickup and clamp a piece of steal tube the same length as the fuel pump so it reaches the bottom of the tank.

 

suck it up thorught the return line.....

 

My original TBI pump is working through a Mallroy 3 port and I haven't had any trouble, and I know there are a lot of others who have done the same. Of course it isn't as high pressure as a multi port pump.

as for sucking through the return line, i don't think there is any type of tubing on the end of the return line inside the tank, not to mention it is small tubing. the only way to do it right with a mechanical is to drop the tank...

 

there is ebought tube, we did it to a 85 iroc, dies if i go bellow 1/4 tank i believe it was....

 

I had a 350 TPI and i used the Mallory 4 port (only used 3 of them) like in one the of the EFI-to-Carb tech articles and it works great. The only glitch i ran into is that I had to add a second regulator inbetween the carb and Mallory because the pressure would not drop below 12PSI. Not I set the Mallory down all the way and use the lil regulator to keep it near 5psi.