mustangman65_79

So last weekend, I took a trip that ended up overheating my car. I found out why that is happening but also another problem krept up.

It seems my car boils the gas in the gas tank on long trips. WHile I know overheating didn't help, and fixing that will help, it still souldn't happen while on the freeway.

I looked and all the stock heat shields are in place. Do I need to make a double heat shield?

novaderrik

most of the fuel that gets pumped to the engine gets returned to the tank via the return line... it picks up a bunch of heat from the engine bay as it passes thru the fuel rails and takes it back to the tank.

mustangman65_79

So then it sounds like maybe I need to make a fuel inline cooler?

novaderrik

wouldn't hurt, but it would be something to leak and cause problems down the road.. every late model car with a return style fuel system heats up the gas in the tank as it runs.

mustangman65_79

well hopefully not the point of it boiling like mine did.

GTA Jim

How do you know that the gas is 'boiling' inside your tank? How can you tell?

15 gallons of boiling gasoline sounds kind of dangerous!

mcquigg

This is a common issue with these cars. If you search the board there are a few ways to fix this issue. The way I solved it was to install a regulator immediately after the fuel filter and plugged the return line on the fuel rail. Unused fuel just gets filtered and returned to the tank without being heated be the engine. Another method is to use a corvette filter that has the regulator built into it.

novaderrik

it also doesn't help that they decided to cram the muffler in right under the gas tank.. i swear the whole exhaust system on these cars is just an afterthought: "alright guys, we designed this awesome chassis that handles great and will win a lot of races. now the bean counters say we have to put an exhaust system under it for some reason"..

mustangman65_79

Because when I took off the fuel cap, it made a loud semi violent hiss (like a fuel tank left in the sun all day) and when I put my hand over the fuel inlet, the fumes tried to burn my skin off.

I'll look into it.

You think these are bad, take a look at the next gens. There is a huge hump on the passenger side for the cat. I had a friend who owned one, and I hated sitting in his car. My right leg was normal, but my left knee was in my chest.

novaderrik

i hate riding in the passenger side of my 86 because of the shape of the floor pan for converter clearance, and every 4th gen that i've been in has been pretty much exactly the same.. since emissions are something that i don't ever have to worry about, i'm going to give the floorpan on the passenger side of my car a few good whacks with a sledgehammer to give it a proper shape if i ever get around to putting some real frame rails and a real trans crossmember under it to let me run pipes off my headers straight back.. this would allow me to get rid of the stupid trans tunnel bracing that they put under it at the factory and make it look more like an older car.. i'll also be putting the mufflers under the rear seat where they belong instead of right under the gas tank..

ASE doc

In fact a special team at Chevrolet spent 11 years(70-81) and lots a dollars designing a car with no place for the exhaust. Really though, when I look at the 67 Camaro that I had in yesterday, the exhaust on it isn't so great either. Real tight bends over the axle due to lack of space. The 70 Chevelle 454SS I had in last week wasn't much better.

EDIT: Of course, the vast superiority of the 3rd gen F-body over any other car in its class makes it worth the difficulty installing exhaust.

mustangman65_79

Yea, the 68 we made one for a month ago didn't have much room, but was a lot more than mine.

novaderrik

my 71 Nova had a lot of room for the Flowmaster crossflow exhaust kit to fit and i've seen 3" duals under them without any really sharp bends.

regarding the design of the third gen: it's actually the second generation of the H body Vega/Monza with a Camaro or Firebird badge on it.. the Camaro was supposed to be based on the Vega chassis starting in 1975, with it's torque arm/panhard bar rear suspension and an optional rotary engine and 4 lug wheels... but a letter writing campaign put a stop to that nonsense and the current F body with it's leaf spring rear suspension stayed in production until they refined the Monza concept to the point where it was acceptable to the public and the F body started to look ancient compared to it's competition.. you can run a decent true dual exhaust under a Vega or Monza without any major clearance issues, but they forgot to leave room under the 82 F bodies for some reason..

ASE doc

I did quite a bit of reading on the 3rd gen's origin in 82 when I bought my Crossfire TA. I read in a few different articles over a year's time that a special team was formed following the release of the second gen. GM wasn't real excited about some new tin on an old chassis so they went to work creating a whole new concept.

The idea was to create a mid size 2 door, 4 passenger performance model that would be far beyond anything else in its class. They wanted to really crush the Mustang. According to one article, along with in depth work on the chassis to optimize cornering, the 3rd gen was designed in a wind tunnel borrowed from Boeing Aircraft. The body tested stable to 280MPH. Gail Banks was really impressed with the new chassis and right away stuffed a 750HP twin turbo 350 in an 82 TA and ran it to 275MPH at Bonneville with zero body mods. I saw the car in a Supercars article in 1984. Since then, the Fugels ran a 92 TA, zero body mods, to a new stock body land speed record of 304MPH. That was back in 2000 or so. I don't know if the record still stands but the last I looked, the video was still available for viewing on their website. I've seen a number of 3rd gens in the top speed races, TAs and Z28s.

I get it however that they may have had thoughts of a smaller concept based on the Monza. With fuel and insurance prices making life though for V8 cars, the smaller concept makes sense given the times back then. Honestly, I read those articles so long ago, I forget most of it.

Funny thing is I tried to go back and recap all that I had read back in 82 and couldn't find anything on the origin of the 3rd gen. Just some skimmed over fluff that any of us could have written.

Warlocksirix

http://www.kugelkomponents.com/bonne...lle_300mph.php nvm found it

ASE doc

Thanks for posting the link. These 3rd gens definitely have what it takes to be bad *** fast cars. Joe Kugel said " If you're going to go 300MPH in a stock bodied production car-the car of choice is a (3rd gen)Pontiac Firebird" - "Out of all the production cars, it probably has the lowest drag(aerodynamics)" - "At 300 MPH, this Firebird has to be the most stable vehicle that has ever been built". Yep. And the Z28 version of the 3rd gen body isn't far behind.

In the 90s, I read of one team that held the closed course speed record for their class in an 87(or maybe an 88) IROC Z28. Don't remember which class they competed in. The record speed was 187MPH and they made it running a stock out of the box(so they said and I believe it) GM HO crate motor (335HP as I remember). The mods made to the body were frenching the front TS lights, covering the headlamp pockets, and swapping the Z28 rear spoiler for the TA "wing" spoiler, all to reduce drag. I'm betting that the 3rd gen's excellent handling helped alot with making that speed on a circle track.

Another top speed racer ran a stock body 87 IROC(red just like mine!) to 286MPH at Bonneville running an NA 850HP small block chevy. Oh yeah! It was notable not just for its speed, but also for the crazy inlet air cooler he had designed which filled up the passenger side of the car. The cooler helped the NA small block achieve that power level.

These stories are all told from my memory, which isn't always real accurate. If anyone has corrections to offer on any of them, feel free.

LiquidBlue

http://www.hotrod.com/news/1403-1988...283mph-record/