Is anybody running a fuel cell or a poly tank on the street? I did a search, but didn't come up with anything besides fuel cells that were less than 5 gallons. I drive my car on the street, so I would like something similar in size to the stock tank.

 

Someone last year swaped in a huge fuel cell in place of the stock tank. You have to get rid of the spare tire & carrier.
The huge fuel cell served two important purposes....more fuel, longer cruises and b/c it was deeper it actually lowered your center of gravity. Beleive it or not your fuel tank when full is very heavy. So if you had only 9 gallons of fuel left your center of gravity is a few inches lower than a stock tank.
If I had better luck I'd ditch the spare tire and go with a larger tank.
Oh also without the spare tire carrier you'd have to fab something up to protect that fuel cell from any road debris.
Let me know if you end up going this route as I'd like to follow along.

 

yep...

16 gallon with foam and a 87 corvette sender and fuel pump...

check out my corvette pics.

 

I'm at the stage where I'm looking at fuel cells/gas tanks. Search ebay "fuel cell" and you will see a bunch of them. There are several vendors and they note in their descriptions that if you don't see it, they can make it to your spec. They need L, W, H - fitting type and location.

I just looked underneath my 68 yesterday and took some measurements. There is about 39" between the frame rails so a 36" wide tank would (should) leave room for brackets/mounting hardware. There is about 13" front to back - between the trunk and the frame - so 12" - 12.5" front to back seems right. And, there is about 16 - 18" top to bottom - between the body and the upper/lower frame crossmember. The dimension would depend on whether you wanted to mount a rock shield on the lower part of the crossmember or the upper part. That would give 30+ gallons. It seems to me that if you're going to go the trouble of having a custom tank made that you would want a nice snug fit. It seems that the top should tilt down - front to back to run parallel with the body and the bottom should tilt up front to back so that it doesn't hang below the exhaust panel. I was going to mock it up with foam and see about fuel pump/fuel filter/fuel line routing and check installation/removal. The filler would need to be centered and back about 3" from the front. Most of the standard/stock tanks (poly) are flat and have a side filler. JEGS or SUMMIT have a bunch aluminum tanks - and they have center fill and sumps but are too wide. Anyone know about DOT/track regulations (which one are/are not legal - where)? I could also use some info on fuel line material (1/2" stainless???), fuel line protection, routing, pumps, filters, water separators, etc.

 

Someone really, really needs to start making direct replacement plastic gas tanks for our cars. I love those things...no rust.

 

I had a poly (Jaz was the manufacturer) 16 gallon cell in my Mustang vintage racer until the end of the '97 season when our sanctioning body (VARA) banned them, so I ordered a 15 gallon cell from Fuel Safe which was made of a flesh-colored rubbery fabric-impregnated silicone-like material. I also occasionally drove the car on the street on 50/50 pump/race gas and this mixture ate through the bladder in about two years. I informed Fuel Safe of the problem (they were in Oregon and claimed to be unaware of the diabolical things our disgusting reformulated gasoline does to fuel systems) and they sent me a new bladder which was made of a black neoprene-like material which is like the aircraft fuel bags that I see at work. It hasn't begun leaking (yet) so I think the black stuff is OK. Poly cells are great but they they don't bend on impact-they BREAK- and therefore I am unaware of any racing sanctioning bodies which still allow them for competition.

 

Thanks. That's really good information. I didn't know that. Is an aluminum tank any better? I guess the no-brainer would be to slap in a new repro stock tank.

 

I've taken pretty careful measurements, and it looks like the biggest I can fit in my '73 with no problem is the ATL 26 gallon Sports cell SP126B. Of course that will require removing the spare tire carrier and fabricating supports. These cells are expensive - their racer pricing for this one starts at $883 without a sender.

 

The ATL cells are a little overkill for my application. My car is driven purely on the street, so I don't need to satisfy any sanctioning bodies (besides the DOT). It looks like the one problem i'm going to have is maintaining the stock filler location. If I use one of the cells from Summit/Jegs, I'll need to use a remote filler. Any suggestions?

 

Do you have any more details on the tank performance in a possible impact? will it deform and hold it's fuel or crack and spill?
Also, deatails of how the swap can be done. Thanks,, C.

 

Where did you measure - by the spare tire?

 

I removed the spare tire carrier and the gas tank. The tightest measurement is from front to back - or the outside of the storage compartment (not the little one, I'm talking about where the T-Tops would be stored) to a vertical line above the inboard side of the frame rear bar. Side to side has enough space for just about any cell. The nice thing about the 126B is it's about 14" front to back, and the filler door is about 7" behind the outside of the storage compartment. So I think it's going to line up just right with the filler neck. The cell height is a bit of a concern - the underside of the cell will be about even with the underside of the bumper.

I'm going to make a 1X2 board frame to match the dimensions of the cell and make sure it fits. One thing to keep in mind is the cell's steel box has a lip which is supposed to add 1" to each side. That's what will apparently eliminate the 32 gallon cell.

 

Chris,
I went to your link. Awesome job. Wow!!!

You know when I measured front to back, I used a straightedge and tried to keep it vertical and measured back to the rear crossmemeber. I came up with about 13". I'll have to recheck but my frame is a 68 and yours is a 76 ... ? so that might make a difference. I chased down the atl pdf and I scrolled through. I could not find where they dimensioned the filler. Thanks for the info.

 

Thanks! I measured 17 inches front to back. I've added pics I just took to my website so you can compare against what it looks like under your '68. http://web.mac.com/clsjohnson/iWeb/7...ced_by_73.html

I actually have a 73 now - I bought one from a forum member to accelerate my project. I made the mistake of screwing up the fiberglass while I was making the mistake of taking the front clip off (won't do that again).

 

Mine will be driven on the street as well. I'm doing the cell just for added peace of mind (Florida drivers are really stupid, one will probably nail me in the rear), and I need larger fuel pickups anyway. One thing I noticed on the 73 is it would not take much at all to collapse that bumper and puncture the tank. Not a lot of metal back there...

If you can find a cell that is 14" wide, you may not need a remote filler. If you use one that's wider, but shorter, a 45 degree neck may work. These are some of the same things I thought about in my own application, before I found the one that looks like it will be a perfect fit.

 

Check your state regulations. Some have requirements for the gas tanks and you may violate them without knowing it.

It isn't about safety, it is about numbers. Just like the standard 5 point harness is illegal on the street usually. Most are not DOT approved and therefore illegal.

 

The tank is from Speedway Motors. it has one tiny hole in it an you can put the holes any where you like.

My car is 100% custom so I had to get creative.

I plan on replacing the poly unit down the road with an ATL or Fuelsafe unit inside of a Nascar style mounting cage to deal with the rear end impact issue.

I filled the poly cell with foam.

If you are really worried about impact you can get a bladder to put inside the poly.

The poly is 0.250" thick with no seams.

 

Corvette: 1963-1967
• Capacity: 20 gallons
• Dimensions: 38" x 15-3/4" x 11-3/4"

 

Can you tell us more about this? I would like to do this in my factory tank because I just want to stop the fuel from sloshing around when driving/racing. How do you secure it inside the tank? are there different kinds of foam?

 

that's interesting. How would you find a baldder for a 70's repo tank? Any idea of where you could get one that would fit a repo steel tank?