Stop fuel surge on left handers!

[Ade]

Well I spent Saturday morning at Proalloy having one of their long range anti surge fuel tanks fitted.
As with all of the items they make it looked really good, almost to good to hide away where it will never see the light of day again.
It was a job that would be possible on the floor but I wouldn't suggest it.
Remove the O/S rear wheel and arch liner to take off the pipes running to the filler neck, these are one use jubilee clip so make sure you have new ones.





When you have dropped the tank it was very awkward to remove the pump harness and pipes, obviously we could have first removed the interior to use the access panel in the tub we chose not too as time was limited.



After removing the old tank there are a pair of black foam blocks you need to pull off the car. Once removed peal off the white pieces of foam from them and stick them to the tub of the car where the black foam blocks came from (sorry forgot to take a photo) remove the sender and pump and install in the new tank. You now no longer need the white spacer below the pump as it is built into the new tank.







There was a good weight saving of over 4kg to.

The guage now reads a bit strange as the first 2 or 3 gallons used don't register any fuel used but then it reads like normal, main bonus is no more fuel starvation on left hand corners when you have less than half a tank. I will have to test for definite but I think the tank now holds about 54 litres.

[exarkun1178]

is this now available to purchasing? if so, link?

[petroboy]

Many folks have posted that the left-hander fuel starvation is a result, in early cars, of the baffle sealant in the tank degrading. This has been repaired (new fuel tank) in some cars under warranty.

[Ade]

Originally Posted by exarkun1178

is this now available to purchasing? if so, link?

Email Proalloy to ask about availability Pro Alloy Ltd - The UK's Number One for Alloy Racing Tanks, Radiators & Intercoolers...

[shinoo]

Yep, we'll have them here. ProAlloy is shipping one this Friday along with one of their Charge Coolers. First we need to confirm fitment in the US cars and then we'll have them in stock...

BTW: I stopped in at ProAlloy a couple of months and ago. The boys are super cool and their quality top notch!

[Illumiloti]

anyone know if the problem was corrected by '07? (I have an '07 Exige S)

[def]

I think the tank problem was only for 05 tanks

[Gripp]

I have 07 and I am starting to have same issues with fuel problem. Hard left turns equal lost of power. Any new ideas...

[darkSol]

I have this exact fuel tank and a Walbro 255 pump that'll be going in sometime in the next couple of months - Stay tuned!

[38bfast]

The "Fed" tanks are different from the European tanks. The "Fed" tanks have a completely different venting system to work with our charcoal canisters to keep them CARB legal. The Proalloy or ATL tanks vent without a charcoal canister. The 05 has one discriminating valve and the 06 and up have 2 Discriminating valves. The 05 is added to the top of the tank and the 06 and up are put in before the tanks are welded shut. They also include a roll over valve on the vent as well as on the fill.

The fuel starve problem is on all tanks 05 and up. Except for the 211s that now have a redesigned tank. Unfortunately the new 211 tank will not work with our vent system. It is based on the none “Fed” design. The 211 does not have to comply to CARB standards.

The baffle design inside the tanks allows fuel to slosh away from the fuel pick up. I have several tanks, 05-08 and they all have the same design. From what I can tell it’s more the design of the baffle than the delaminating of the sealant. Oh, buy the way all the tanks that I have taken apart so far have had the sealant delaminated from the tank.

At best case the current tank will only maintain .366 gallons on the side with the fuel pump at a 1.0g left turn. Less with more G force (stickys). Of that .366 gallons, only a small portion is left under the fuel pick up.

As we all know it’s very bad to run an engine lean, even more so on SC cars. prolonged high G Left hand turns will starve the engine. There is no way around it with the current design with low fuel. The higher the Gs, the longer the LH turn and the lower the fuel level the more evident the problem becomes. Then add the delaminating of the sealant to the problem.

I am currently working on a design to the current tank that will drastically improve this problem and still be CARB legal. Should be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned.

[darkSol]

Update... I dropped the stock tank in 2 hrs. 10 minutes... with 2 beer breaks



Now to swap the Walbro 255 in there

Stay tuned!

[turbophil]

You forgot to mention that you did this with the assistance of the tilting clam

[darkSol]

Sorry bout that!

Yes - and since my rear panel was already out I didn't need to take the driver's seat out either... Clamhinge saved at least an hour of swearing

[turbophil]

hehehe

[slaughtr]

Originally Posted by shinoo

Yep, we'll have them here. ProAlloy is shipping one this Friday along with one of their Charge Coolers. First we need to confirm fitment in the US cars and then we'll have them in stock...

BTW: I stopped in at ProAlloy a couple of months and ago. The boys are super cool and their quality top notch!

Cost?

[turbophil]

That tank was about a grand and it is not plug and play. Notice that the emissions lines are different. If you're trying to stay OBDII compliant, you may have a hard time keeping the evap system happy with it. I dunno. As it is, we'll have to weld a titty to the filler neck (just like the euro spec and cup cars cars) to run the vent line to so the system can breath during fill up.

A nice unit for sure, but probably not for everyone...

I'm sure dark will take many pics and weigh every fitting to get the precise weight savings

TP

[darkSol]

Ok... here are my findings:

The bare 2005 tank weighs in at 25.380 lbs. (11.51 kg). Disappointing! (I wanted it to weigh more!)
The ProAlloy tank weighs in at 15.480 lbs. (7.02 kg).
The two black chassis foam pads that are not reused weigh 0.681 lbs. (0.31 kg).

Overall net weight loss (including all hoses, clamps, foam, etc): 9.64 lbs.

Here's my latest corner weights with absolutely no gas in the tank
LF 366 RF 359
LR 520 RR 528
Total 1773

Left 886 50.0%
Right 887 50.0%

Front 725 40.9%
Rear 1048 59.1%

LF/RR 894 50.4%
RF/LF 879 49.6%

So my Elise now weighs in between 1773 lbs. (804 kg) completely empty to 1861 lbs. (844 kg) completely full (54 liters, 88 lbs. of gas)... and no fuel surge on track!

I've updated my home page with all the new weights.



Enjoy!

[breinhar]

So how much work was it to get this tank to fit in the FED elise? I ask because I also see that sector111 has started an exhange program to modiify the stock tank to solve the problem. But I would be more interested in this tank if it is possible because of the weight savings and addtional capacity.

[richw350]

Originally Posted by breinhar

So how much work was it to get this tank to fit in the FED elise? I ask because I also see that sector111 has started an exhange program to modiify the stock tank to solve the problem. But I would be more interested in this tank if it is possible because of the weight savings and addtional capacity.

x2

[darkSol]

Note: Keep in mind I have removed the charcoal canister from my car...

Steps (total of about 5 hours):

- Remove connections to upper fuel pump housing through access port
- Raise car, remove undertray
- Remove shifter cables, throttle cable, emergency brake horseshoe
- Remove shear panel
- Support stock tank while removing cradle brackets
- Carefully drop stock tank while feeding hoses through chassis hole
- Remove chassis mounted hard black foam pieces
- Relocate small soft white foam pieces to where black ones went
- Optional: Pull fuel pump, replace with Walbro 255
- Transfer side tank mounted soft black foam pieces to new tank
- Cut stock hard line and cap fuel pump vent on pump housing
- Transfer and stretch fuel filler hose onto new tank (it's 3/8" bigger in diameter).
- Use 20" piece of hose (I reused the stock cap overflow hose) for smaller vent
- Attach upper vent hose to stock vent - leave vent solenoid/wiring in place - works great!
- Raise, remount, reattach, refill...

I suppose if you wanted to use the stock emission hardware you could still cap the fuel pump vent (new tank vent pipe is higher up - makes lower pump mounted one useless) and just use a hose to connect the new small vent pipe to the existing charcoal canister venting system. It should work (almost) exactly the same.

It's a bloody shame this tank will never (again) see the light of day... IMHO it's just as pretty as the billet door hinges