The Whole Package - Building a Complete Fuel System

One of the most important parts of a racecar build is making sure you have a fuel system that will do the required job. There is nothing worse than not having enough fuel whether it is caused by too small a pump, overly restrictive filters or a poorly designed fuel tank. This article discusses the pertinent points about having a properly designed fuel system and fuel tank/cell for your particular application and the intent is to help our readers bypass any issues they may come across when it is their turn to look for a complete fuel system solution.

I am fairly familiar with drag race fuel systems from certain manufacturers but over the past few years I have been watching Fuelab out of Collinsville, IL making their mark in all types of motorsport. My friends Mike Lewin, Grant Davis and Dan O’Donnell have run Fuelab systems in their Professional Awesome Time Attack EVO as has another friend, Gary Parker who runs his SVT Mustang in NMRA’s Modular Muscle class. Both teams have good words to say about the Fuelab products and because of those endorsements I’ve been talking to Josh Davis at Fuelab for a couple of years in preparation for the time we needed to put together a gasoline/E85 fuel system for Cooper RSR.

Our annual trip to the 2019 PRI show sealed the deal when I spied a fuel cell sitting on a shelf at the back of the Fuelab booth. With part of the cell tank and foam cut away you could clearly see the Fuelab H/E Series flange mount brushless screw pump sticking down into a cutaway fuel cell.

So, I grabbed Josh and asked what was up. “Just something they have been playing with over the past few weeks.” He went on, “We were sort of surprised when the assembled display unit arrived but here it is at the PRI Show. Wouldn’t that be perfect for your Cooper RSR project?”

The Fuelab H/E Series pump was mounted on a SAE 6x10 bolt in plate that housed both the fuel pump and fuel fill connector. The fuel fill can either be local at the cell or remotely connected to a dry brake or fender adapter. This makes for a clean installation and with the functionality of a properly designed fuel cell it is perfect for our Cooper RSR project. I originally started working on this article way back at the start of 2020. A few things have changed along the way including where we decided to source the fuel cell. In fact, the first article in this series was pretty well put to bed and was very close to being published. What transpired I am not going to talk about but putting the article on hold and the extra time I had to research the product got me thinking that maybe the article needed a severe revamp. The guys at Fuelab have been fantastic with their support and have freely and generously given their time to this project, including answering all my silly questions.

So, what made me think I needed to revamp the article? It was something I found when I was researching on the Harmon Racing Cells website. Harmon, based in Covina, CA have a section on the site called Fuel Cells 101 and that got me thinking.

The first line states unequivocally ‘While there are many products on the market today using the term ‘fuel cell’ this is, often times, a loose or incorrect association’. During all my researching on the World Wide Web using the term, ‘race car fuel cell’ quite a few options came up. Many of them were what I would call a fuel tank, not a fuel cell, because as far as I was aware a fuel cell always requires a bladder. It was something I remembered from the dangerous days of Formula 1 back in the Sixties and Seventies where the likes of triple F1 Champion Jackie Stewart believed he lost in the region of fifty-four fellow drivers and many of them were physically unharmed, they just could not get out of the burning car in time. And just as the safety at the circuits got better so did the technology to safely contain racing fuel in a crash, minimizing the risk of a blazing inferno tha tpreviously snuffed ou tthe lives of super talented drivers.The Fuel Cells 101explains a fuel cell must consist of three main components to be considered a true fue lcell. An aluminum or steel outer container provides the first line of mechanical defence in an accident as well as maintaining the internal bladder keeps it shape. The internal, soft-resin bladder is designed to flex and absorb any secondary impact that ma come through the container and disperse that energy while still containing the fuel. The foam is designed to both mitigate fuel slosh within the tank and ensure proper fuel delivery no matter what the forces being exerted on the race car are doing and to prevent any pooling of vapors inside the tank

from catching fire if there’s a spark. Aluminum tanks typically consist of a completely sealed aluminum can with either internal baffled walls or a lowered sump to reduce fuel slosh and trap the fue lfor delivery to the engine. A new option to ensure proper fuel pickup at low fuel levels is Holley’s HydraMat. While all fuel cells can be considered a fueltank, no tank can be considered a fuel cell without incorporating all three of the components we have mentioned.

Harmon Racing Cells has been in businessfor over 20 years, with over 39 years of experience in designing and building custom fuel cells for the racing industry. Their mission is simple - to build the strongest, safest, best performing fuel bladders on the market, period! This obsession translates into everything they do, from the materials they choose to the final assembly of each custom fuel cell they build, creating the best fuel cell available as if they were going to install it in their own buggy, truck or car. and utilizing his knowledge to produce safe fuel cells for the motorsport world. Knowing his future was still in the Fuel Cell business he was soon received dozens of calls from old friends asking if he could produce a quality fuel cell cheaply, quickly, and locally. Working nights out of his garage, he began to manufacture the first Harmon labeled fuel cells in 1998 with nothing but his expert knowledge and a few basic garage tools. Within years, business was booming! Today, we’re poised to overtake the competition by providing new designs, revolutionary hardware, competitive prices for the racer, and the strongest and longest-lasting fuel cells in the world.

Now after reading all that I started thinking, do I really need a fuel cell? For sure it would be safer. In know my wife would prefer if ran one inCooper RSR, just in case. Most Time Attack rules other than Global Time Attack do not require a FIA certified fuel cell. For sure they are required for wheel to wheel racing where NASA, SCCA and CASC insist on them or an OEM tank. ?? What is that all about? An OEM tank is okay, I’m at a loss as to why they allow that but not a fuel tank without a bladder. Anyway, ignore that thought and let’s get back to what we were talking about. Yes, the FIA fuel cell is going to be more expensive, but it will add value to the race car as it can do double duty and run both TA and W2W.

From here fuel cells can be broken down into two main categories: FIA certified and non- FIA certified. Most sanctioning bodies require a standard FIA certified fuel cell in order to compete in their series, so the first thing to do is read the rules and see what is required for you to compete there. If you are buying a car and it is advertised as having an FIA cell, try to get some proof that it is FIA legal and also not out of date. While most soft-resin bladders are built to FIA specifications (as outlined under the FIA FT3/3.5/5-1999 specifications relating to fuel safety bladders) not all fuel cells come with an FIA certification/rating, it has to have a special testing and a tamper-proof sticker adhered to the bladder itself listing the build date and expiry date Most companies, including Harmon Racing Cells, charge an additional fee that ranges from as little as $25 to nearly $100 USD to ‘certify’ a fuel cell and make it legal for use in competition. This sticker is only available through FIA approved fuel cell manufacturers and signifies that the fuel cell meets or exceeds FIA FT3-1999 standards for fuel cell bladder strength, construction, and assembly. The great thing is that this allows the safety bladder to be used in any competition worldwide in any FIA sanctioned event or any sanctioning body adhering to FIA safety standards. to what actually is required when choosing a fuel cell.

Non-certified cells may or may not be allowed for competition use, depending on the particular racing body. While most soft-resin bladders are FIA certified most hard-bladders, many such as plastic polyethylene or polypropylene tanks with an outer metallic container are not as they are not built to FIA standards. While plastic tanks are considered a fuel cell by definition, they are not an equivalent substitute in terms of strength, construction, or safety. Hard bladder cells will not perform as the FIA require in an accident when a cell is punctured. Remember a fuel cell is another safety item that needs to perform as designed what catastrophe hits, you cannot test it beforehand; re-install it and say now we are good to go. My advice is don’t scrimp, get a proper FIA certified fuel cell right from the get-go. Also remember this is not a fit it and forget it application, there are things you need to do to maintain it, so it works when required.

So what made Harmon different as far as I was concerned? Years of experience has exposed the company to different types of materials for use in bladders, plates, and cans. They have been able to test and determine which are the best and that is why their products last, on average, 30-40% longer than comparable fuel cells. Harmon sells their products to almost every continent on the planet. Always learning the company has made designing fuel cells easier than ever, whether it’s a one-off or a production design.

Now we have that part out of the way we can get back to the install on Cooper RSR. How big will the fuel cell be? I am not sure yet, but it will fit in the passenger side of the car where the rear seat squab used to be. The cell will be filled by a remote filler located above the passenger side quarter panel in the window area. That should allow us to properly insulate the fuel cell from the driver should fuel manage to escape. I reviewed photos on the Harmon Racing Cells Facebook page and was pleased to see that they offered an internal lip for fastening the container cover to the box section. To me that is a far nicer solution than the external flange used by so many of the other manufacturers. As we will be installing the cell from the bottom of the car, having a fuel cell with an external flange on four sides would reduce the fuel capacity quite a bit.

I wanted to confirm with Jim Harmon that cells listed on their website were not the only sizes available. “For sure.” He said, “The majority of our fuel cells are built to custom dimensions.” My intention was to build a cardboard model of the cell so I could ensure it would give me the capacity I would require as well as fit in the limited space found in a R53 MINI Cooper. The capacity would be especially important on days where we would be running Cooper RSR on E85 when fuel consumption is almost doubled. “No problem” Jim said, “We can replicate your mockup in aluminum with a bladder to suit” While that is a great option for many people, I use AutoCAD LT for my electrical drawings, so drawing up the fuel cell with the proper dimensions and sending Harmon a digital file will be a better solution. The next issue sees us go more in depth in designing a complete fuel system!