Question for those who race.

Do you experience fuel surge and if so how have you cured it?

I'm currently racing a R53 Mini but suffering fuel surge and am danger close with fuel surge on 40min stints currently when approaching 1/4 tank and it seems to be getting worse.

Also I'm abit confused why theres fuel surge at all as from what I gather the fuel filter sits in a 1L bucket of fuel inside the tank on one side as does the pump on the other side so theres effectively 2L of surge protection as standard.

That said I've bought a 2.6L swirl pot with integrated twin pumps but have no idea how to install it since it's a returnless system.

The current fuel system (I believe) is non-return and it has two pressure regulators. One of them is in the filter basket within the standard tank and the other is on the fuel rail. The one in the fuel filter basket is set to 4.5bar which means its going to try and provide the swirl pot with that fuel pressure. The swirl pot is only rated to an internal pressure of 10psi (0,7bar) so we need to make sure we don't build any where near that pressure in the swirl pot. Usually there will be a return from a swirl pot to the tank to prevent a pressure build up but as the Mini system is returnless I'm going to have to use the overflow pipe on the the filler neck to return the fuel. Even so, a 4.5bar regulator feeding the swirl pot is a bit high.

Moving on to the fuel rail, it has it's own regulator which is set at 3.5bar and is boost/vacuum referenced which means it adjusts fuel pressure in the rail based on inlet manifold pressure. As it is non-return it only controls pressure in the rail and not the feed line which, as the swirl pot pumps have a higher LPH, its likely to create more pressure than that in the feed line and could strain the pumps.

Has anyone got any advice on pointers?

 

Any luck?
Same situation. Been looking for an in-tank solution. Maybe adapt a BMW solution already available?

 

I am interested to know the results too. I would assume that you would run the factory output into the surge tank then make a return back tot the factory tank. Then from the tank to the motor I think the solution might be to install a Corvette inline filter/FPR that the would return back to the surge tank. This way the pressure leaving the surge tank would be a 58psi and then the FPR on the fuel rail would adjust per boost.

 

I cured my fuel starve issue by converting to a return fuel system using the Nuke Performance R53 fuel rail. Some use of the dremel to clearance intake and custom mounts for the fuel rail were required. The fuel pump canister has a quick connect input connector on it - just needs to have end opened. On inside is a barb fitting I used for flex hose to route returning fuel into fuel pump holder.