i would like to get your guys opinion on mounting a small fuel cell in the front of the car or somewhere under the hood. i should mention that the car is a drag race only no street at all (trailer queen) something like a 2 or 3 gallon cell. i am not opposed to putting it in the rear just seems like a pain to do it right and make it pass tech i havent seen enough pics of it in the rear to get better ideas if some of you could show pics that would be great.

as for the cage are any of you guys worried when you launch your car and the wheels come pretty high and it comes slamming down and buckling or tweaking the frame where the fire wall and the main frame horns or that part of the chassie (you know where i am talking about). so i am wanting to put a full cage in the car where it comes through the firewall and welds to the front frame area. like a spohn 14 point cage.

you may ask why i need so much cage well stiffer is better and the support for the front and room to go faster. the car is getting put together the motor should make right around 550 to 600 hp and we plan on having a 200 shot of nitrous. please excuse me for making this so big and rambling along but any info and your thoughts would be great thanks JERRY

 

Mounting a fuel cell up front depends on what size and shape of fuel cell you use. I've seen some mounted in the battery space (on either side). I have a very small rad in my car (It's from a Pontiac Firefly) and have a 4 gallon vertical cell mounted right beside it. Running alcohol, I use a lot of fuel. It's possible I could make 2 passes without topping up the fuel cell but I top it back up after every run.

I still don't have cage tubes through the firewall but I do have some tubes that run from the front of the strut towers down to the front of the frame rails. When I pull my wheels, the car comes down very gently. Unless something drastic happens, I'm not letting off the throttle when the wheels are up in the air to slam the front end down to the ground which can cause a lot of damage. My front end has a lot of suspension travel. When the front end comes down, the springs and shocks absorb the impact without doing any damage. During competition, I just tighten up the front shocks and the front end stays down a lot more.

If you can't control the front end with shock settings or travel limiters then install some wheelie bars to keep it down. Third gens are very nose heavy cars. It takes a lot to get the front end high in the air.

 

Jerry, is yours a backhalf or stock suspension car? Don

 

www.edquay.com

they have setups for mounting fuel cell in the trunk area.

 

thanks alky is the small fuel cell up front legal for nhra tech and what are your thoughts on 14 point spohn cage to address my concern on tweaking the front end. also i wouldnt mind running a small fuel cell and refueling after every pass if its int he front or rear.

don,
the car is not backhalfed just the BFH to make room for the wheels thats about it.

edquay is a good option but i want to see what you guys have done and what ideas you have

THANKS GUYS ,,JERRY

 

Lots of vehicles have a fuel cell up front. If you want to know the exact rulings, buy a rulebook. The basic rule is that fuel cells must be within the confines of frame and/or steel body.

A cage is designed to protect the driver. Unless you dip below 9.99, you only need a basic 6 point roll bar. A basic full cage is good to 8.50 and as I already mentioned, even I don't use the tubes that go through the firewall. I'm pretty sure my car is more hacked up than yours. Putting the tubes through the firewall will add some strength but if you plan on pulling the wheels so high that you fear you're going to do damage to the car, no roll cage will prevent that.

 

your right i will look at my rule book and see what i must do. As for the cage a might do what you did and just support the front thanks for the advise i am pretty sure the car will do around a 10.4x on the motor and on a full nitrouse pass i can see 9s happening. . based on a third gen that we just built weighing in at 2896 pounds with driver mine should be pretty close to that but i will be happy with anything under 3000 pounds .. thanks partner...

 

I have this fuel cell mounted up front on the passenger side were the battery tray went. It's a 4 gallon. I had to torche out the hole some and made some hangers for the cell to sit in and made a strap that goes over the top. I had to put it in backwards so that the hood would close. I capped off the front sumps and put my own in the back towards the fuel pump. I can take some pictures tomorrow if you want. I've went through NHRA tech with it, but for a class slower than 6.49

 

heck yeah pics would be great and maybe a pic on where you have your fuel pump mounted.

something like what you have is kinda what i was thinking thanks 1bad406

 

I'll get some shots tomorrow for you. My fuel pump is a BG mechanical pump that bolts to the block and pumps off the cam shaft and rod. Goes into a BG throttle controlled bypass that returns right back to the tank. its on alcohol. Idles at 3psi and has 12psi wot down track.

 

ok i figuerd you had an electric fuel pump just seems that on the faster drag cars mechanical fuel pumps are starting to be uncommon. but the pics would help me on the location issue thanks 1bad406

 

sorry it took so long on the pics..

 

heres the last 3

 

Nobody has ever questioned the fuel call being on the outside of the frame rail without a 1-1/4" tube around it? With the rule as "fuel cells must be within the confines of frame and/or steel body", it's sort of a grey area to say if it should pass tech or not. It's not within the confines of the frame but is inside a steel body.

My fuel cell location isn't much different. My rad support is gone with nothing more than some 1" square tube running across the top. A small rad is on the passenger side and a fuel cell is squeezed in beside it. The fuel cell is sort of between the frame rails but there's nothing in front of it other than the plastic nose. Tech has either never noticed or feels it's good enough.

If you smacked a wall with the front fender or if I hit a wall with the nose, the fuel cells would be damaged.

I'll get some pics tonight. Since I've redone the front of the engine, I don't have any new pictures of the setup yet.

 

I don't know the exact rules on it, but I've been through NHRA tech at Atlanta Dragway when ORSCA ran there and it passed, but it's only for 7.00 1/8th mile. I'm sure if I was running a class alot faster like 6.00 I might have to put something around it. But like you said on the rules.. its within a steel body being the fenders right? So maybe thats enough?

 

thats awsome perfect pics and i think its better for the fuel pump so it doesnt have to suck/push the fuel all the way from the back im sure there is some psi and volume loss when you have the fuel cell in the back..

my block is hardblocked all the way to the top freeze pugs so i would like to run a full radiator just so the car stays cool enough to drive back to the pit's. i know you guys are on alcahol so you dont realy have that problem sence it runs so much cooler your intakes are probly frosty when you get back to the pits. but the other upside is you can run alot of compression and not ping.

 

Here's where I have my fuel cell mounted. As I already said, it's never been questioned although it should have a hoop around the front of it. Ignore the fuel tank vent line. I'm still doing fabrication work. The belt driven fuel pump is mounted low under the vacuum pump and can't be seen in these pics.

Third pic is what the engine looks like for the 2011 season. On the passenger side, you can see the tube running from the strut tower down the the front of the frame rail. On the driver's side, I have an oil accumulator attached to the tube.

 

wow i bet you are putting down some seriouse power with a rat motor on alcohol. you put your alternator on backwards (just kidding) that pretty creative sence your motor plate is in the way thats thinking out side the box i dont think i would have thought of that well i guess you learn something new every day.. well sence your fuelcell is a 4 gallon and i know you are using more fuel than my small block i can probly get away with a 2or 3 gallon cell in the same location as 1bad406 and refuel after every pass but your guys pics have helped a ton and my cell is going in the front... THANK YOU
JERRY

 

If your front end "slams" back down from a wheel stand, you did something wrong. Mine has literally been on the bumper and still never even rubbed the bump stops when it set down.

This is an old pic of mine before I finished the car, and while we still ran a radiator. It has a 1-1/4" tube that comes from the main frame rails(ties in right where the smaller rad mount/front clip tube is at in this pic) and goes around the front of the fuel cell at the bottom; the 1-1/4" tube is required, due to the cell being ahead of/outside of the main frame rails.



The entire front "cradle" assembly un-bolts, removing everything forward of the block plate with four bolts.

 

In a race only car I would not have a rear mounted cell.

 

I am running the Ed Quay setup in my car. It is a very nice setup and installs easily. It is a little pricey though. Below are some pictures of it installed. As an added bonus it also has a battery mount. You can even get a dual battery mount if you want to run that setup.

 

the ed quay setup is darn good looks good in your car to it is a little pricey but its worth it..


as for priceing the parts in our race cars you cant cause if you want to go realy fast and be legal it cost big time . sometimes i feel like drag racing is becoming a rich mans sport and its getting hard for some of us poor boys to keep up . but like most of us we all started with 15 and 14 second street cars and slowly they became 8,9 and 10 second cars some still sreet legal.. you cant put a price on a darn good time.
alkyiroc is a good example from what i have read his car has become a monster full on race car..

 

mw66nova his car started life as a v6 then a small block to i believe a Ls from what i have read on his car hes not too far from a trailer queen (full on race car)

 

mw's car is still a long ways from being a trailer queen. He still drives it to work and school whenever he feels like it and could take a long higway trip if he didn't mind the fuel bill. - My junk is still tagged and insured, but it doesn't see the street much anymore(mehico anyone?), and johnny po wouldn't be to thrilled about non-DOT tires none-the-less 5" side exit exhaust....

Trailering to the track is a no brainer if you have good access to a tow vehicle and tailer. IMO anything 12's or faster, inevitably you will break something sometime while racing, and having driven it there makes a PITA to sort out getting it home.

 

wow he falls in the fast street car category but you are right driving to the strip and breaking something is a pain having to sort out how you are going to get home

 

this is what i did. its not totally finished but you get the idea. im going to make the impact bar alittle better and i have to make an aluminum cover to go around the exposed bottom of the cell.

http://s54.photobucket.com/albums/g1...9/fuel%20cell/

 

I was thinking about doing something like that but the ends of my frame rails are a little hacked up. Those bevel cuts are not very strong. It would be better to have the tubes coming off the frame rails with fish mouth notches onto a tube running across the front then weld plugs onto the ends.