Stock fuel pump able to handle 45mm DCOE???

[Golf Loon]

Hi all.....On the rally car which has the standard Solex carby I don't have a fuel return line. I'm using a Facet low pressure electric pump mainly to get away from having fuel lines and pump at the front of the car. I don't have any problems with the carby flooding.....Geoff

Yeah if the carby is setup right, it doesnt matter, any excess it just chucks out the back anyway.

Provided you go flat out everywhere, like your rally car, its fine.

[richo]

I had a real shocker with fuel starvation when I first got my mk1 which had a 40dcoe and the standard pump. Ok around town (i guess the stop-start kept the float full) but first time cruising down the M4 out of the city it just died in the fast lane at 110kph! Pulled over and eventually got it idling so off I went again taking it a bit more easy.....nup, conked out about another 5 times over the mountains. Got the NRMA but they had no idea so kept soldiering on toward Orange as I was nearly half way by now. When nearing Lithgow it stopped on some bends leaving me nowhere to go but just off the road and it slid into a table drain! Stuck! Had to hitch to Lithgow and call and wait a couple of hours for Marty (twinengtwinturbs) to come out to the rescue. Returned to find one headlight facing skyward and signs of attempted forcing the bonnet. Pulled it out of the drain just as a carload of kids rolled past looking very keenly towards the car....another 30mins and I might have come back to nothing. Anyways, after a bit brainstorming we clamped the return line with cable ties and tried driving....no worries, made it to Orange without a hitch. We found the t-piece was favouring the return line, ie. the 90 degree bend went to the carb, and there was also no restrictor in the return line. Final fix was to get the t-piece right and drill out a jet (can't remember what dia) and stick it in the return line.
Having said all that I think Marty had starvation problems with the same carb and a proper restrictor which led to getting an electric pump; though having a ridiculous cam and driving like fangio probably didn't help.

[Geoffrey Hale]

My theory is that the fuel return is not nessary at all if your using a carby. I reckon the needle and seat shuts off the fuel coming in to the carby when it gets to the correct level. Cars never used to have them. I ran Minis for years with weber carbs and all types of pumps and none had a fuel return line. Like I said in my earlier post I don't have one on the rally car which has a standard 1976 Solex carb and a low pressure Facet electric pump. It doesn't run rich. It runs perfectly all the time,at idle or flat out and anywhere in between. Any one else have any thoughts on the subject.....Geoff

[Peter Jones]

All of the earlier PICT Solex carbs in the aircooled cars ran fine with only a single fuel line.

I reckon the return line setup in the Golf might be related to emissions in some obscure way. Something to do with charcol canisters and non vented tanks?

Perhaps it's to stop vapourisation too.


Pete