braided fuel line caution

[fcv85l]

while recently cruising in my fc i stopped at lights to turn right,the engine coughed and stalled,a fire engulfed the engine bay and made its way under the dash,shannons total lossed the car and i am in the process of a rebuilding her as i managed to extinguish the fire before i lost the lot,the car runs a injected sbc and had 2 500 hp pumps feeding the fire,not ideal, The fire was caused by a top line Australian braided hose which is not compatible with pump fuel,it was supplied for this application and i have noticed recently that 2 manufacturers now do not recommend these hoses when using pump unleaded,please beware when using braided line and i will now be replacing all my fuel system to nylon lined hose from another supplier as i alerted the original supplier and was met with total lack of interest,,,,they are burgulars anyway

[propig2003]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune mate, I'm glad it's still repairable. Thank you for the heads up, nobody needs these things to happen while we're enjoying our rides.

Cheers and good luck with the rebuild
Brett

[FireKraka]

I can only feel for you mate I think I was only lucky the other day after a very long build I was driving to work and when I went to overtake I got a really strong fuel smell got to work and found my fuel supply line leaking from the clamp I was just lucky the the fuel didn't hit the exhaust I would have lost the lot.
Good luck with your rebuild.
Regards
Neil H

[JOX515]

That's really bad news.  Hope the rebuild goes ok and you are back on the road sooner rather than later.  I guess that changes my plans now - was going to dress the engine bay up using braider lines where possible........

[fcwrangler]

Hard luck mate, hope you get it back on the road real soon. If this type of hose is not designed for pump fuel, then they should have a warning clearly shown so this kind of incident doesn't happen. If not then the supplier/ manufacturer should be held accountable.
Jim

[Harv]

Damn sad to hear  .

For the SBC in my wagon, I ran the lines in Swagelok stainless instrument tubing. It's hard to bend, but will take a lot of abuse from rocks etc. The fittings are also made by Swagelok, and damn easy to fit with no flaring required. Good for 10-bazillion psi, and impervious to almost any fuel.

I was also worried about the electric fuel pump, and ended up fitting a Peel Instruments CP30 cutout switch. It senses the pulses in the low voltage side of the ignition coil, and turns off fuel if there are no pulses (ie once the engine is dead, the fuel cuts out). Apparently they were common in taxis in the early 2000's when they ran aftermarket LPG.

Cheers,
Harv

[FC427]

Found this

First of all, if you are using PTFE (Teflon) hose to transfer fuel, you need to make sure the hose has a 'conductive core'. This is easily recognized as the inside diameter of conductive core hose is black--vs the off-white color of 'non-conductive core' PTFE hose. This is important as fuel is a non-conductor AND it generates a static charge as it passes through PTFE hose. The black color in the PTFE conductive core hose is actually carbon--which allows the static electricity to pass through the hose/fittings assembly to ground. Without that, the static charge builds in the hose, looking for a path to 'ground' to--not a good situation. All PTFE fuel hoses used on production cars are conductive because of this issue--TechAFX only offers conductive core PTFE AN hose.

Second, the reason rubber hoses are failing now is because the chemicals/additives being used in today's fuel are not compatible with rubber hose. The production car business has not used rubber fuel hose for over 10 years because they were aware of the issues with being able to handle these fuels--the aftermarket is just now realizing how serious this issue is and that the only solution is PTFE, conductive-core hose.

I know because TechAFX has been doing extensive development/testing in an SAE-certified lab of our PTFE hose assemblies vs rubber hose--and the results are dramatic. To see some of these results, check out the January 2011 issue of HOT ROD magazine...they used some of our testing results to support a story called 'When Good Hoses Go Bad'. One of the results of this work was the release of our affordable, home-assembled PTFE, conductive core AN hose and fittings line.

We had not planned on getting into this business--we are primarily a provider of OE-style QD fitting performance hose assemblies--but we felt a cost effective PTFE hose solution was needed based on our testing results, so we created an AN PTFE hose/fitting product line.

We believe fuel transfer requires the utmost in safety.

I think most of us would agree this side of the business saw almost no requirements change for many years. But it seems to be experiencing a dramatic shift in the requirements now--we believe the solution is conductive-core, PTFE AN hose.

Hope that helps

[DJ]

That's some bad news. I hope you're rebuild is reasonably painless.

[fcv85l]

hey propig,my car was running a turbo smallblock making 600atw on 12psi,more coming,hows the ute??,the fuel pump is triggered by the ecu and shut down the pumps in 3 seconds but at 500hp per pump at 45 psi its lots of fire ,soo much damage,none my fault,very frustrated

[propig2003]

G'day fcv85l, yeah ute's stripped ready for the painters. should be there soon, just a few minor things to sort out. I recently upgraded the fuel system in the ute, went A1000 fuel injected pump, along with a 4 port reg. I'm now running a -10 return line as well as a -10 fuel line. We used the Red flexible fuel hose with Proflow fittings. We used a pump fuel compatible spray to slip the hose over the barbs on the fittings. So much for compatibility, all connections leaked, and we used band clamps too boot. Removed hose from fittings, dried out the hose and replaced, no leaks. But we also fitted a LPG cut off switch, as suggested by Harv, mate, it's a cheap investment, and very cheap.

All the best on the rebuild mate

Brett

[fe350chev]

Just a quick point I'd like to make is, if you ever get word of a car using nitro and it doesn't have the correct fuel line and components then it could be wise to change the lines because it corrodes them.