Mustang #315

I re-did all my fuel lines. Earlier, I described that I’d used the hard line, and then mated -6 fittings and braided line to it. Turns out I need -8 to fully supply this motor, so I re-did them all. Finding a route that stayed away from heat, was well protected, and wasn’t inside the car, was a challenge, but I think I did pretty well with it. In 2 areas, I passed the line through sheetmetal. Ordinarily, you’d do that with a bulkhead fitting. These areas would be pretty hard to reach though (if not impossible) with the car together, so tightening the fittings to solve a leak or something would be really hard. I ended up putting a rubber grommet in the sheet metal, and putting heat-shrink tubing on the fuel line. If I hadn’t put the heat-shrink on there, the line would have ended up cutting trough the rubber in time, and then cutting into the sheet metal. It might also be weakened itself, by the sheet metal rubbing on it. Combining that with mounting the line securely so that it won’t move around, makes for a pretty solid setup.

Fuel pressure regulator installed and connected

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This is covered with heat shrink tubing to protect it from debris, and to keep it from rubbing through the rubber grommets where it passes through metal.

securing the line so it does not move around is key in keeping it lasting long.

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pressure testing the lines is important

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These Aeroquip soft jaws make the job much easier

heat shrink tubing prevents it from abrating against anything - this hose will cut through other metal over time

making large hoops to maintain the minimum bend radius of this hose

later on I ended up with a 30 deg fitting on the right, to ease this bend out

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a bulkhead keeps things simple when passing through sheetmetal.

fuel tank outlet

My friend gave me a killer fuel filter – Mallory 3140 – but it was missing a mount bracket. I made one out of 16 gauge sheet metal.

I cut this sheet metal with an air shear

On the left is my fuel filter. My friend gave it to me, but it came without a mount bracket. No problem!

I drew out the pattern, marked the line for the screw holes, and hit the hole locations with a center punch before drilling. the center punch makes drilling so much easier - the bit won't have a tendency to "walk"

bent up the back in my vise, and ... finished! I should really have made a bigger mount bracket on the back. I didn't cut enough metal initially though, and this should be good enough.

My friend sold me this sweet carb. It’s a Holley 4150 that’s been rebuilt by The Carb Shop to their stage III race carb specs.  I did some rebuild work on it – replaced gaskets, cleaned all the old varnish out, replaced the power valve and accelerator pump diaphragms, replaced the fuel sight windows.  I also tapped and helicoiled the air filter mount and set the accelerator pump clearances.

I cleaned out all the old gas varnish with q-tips and carb cleaner.

With the throttle valves removed, this is the bottom of the carb

This is a really nice carb that my friend gave me a great deal on. It's a Holley 4150, but it's been rebuild by The Carburetor Shop to their Stage III race carb specs.

carefully cleaned off the old gasket material from the metering blocks

These old accelerator pump diaphragms have seen better days. replaced!

Shiny new accelerator pump diaphragm

After installing the new accelerator pump diaphragm, I set the travel of the pump actuator. Set the carb to Wide Open Throttle, push the pump arm to full on, and set the screw so that there is .015 clearance. This prevents you from tearing the diaphragm at WOT.

The air filter mount bracket was stripped out. This 1/4x20 Helicoil took care of that no problem.

Carb put together. You can see I removed an unused vaccuum port and put in a 1/8 NPT set screw in its place as a plug.

Anticipating the higher fuel usage that I’ll be experiencing at the track, I bought a 3/8″ hard line to replace the 5/16″ stock unit. Taking a hint from Carroll Smith, I put heat-shrink tubing on the line in the wheel-well areas, to protect it from rocks and whatnot.

To go from the hard-line to the pump, carb, and fuel cell, I installed Aeroquip AN-6 line and swivel fittings. Making these lines was fun. I found that the best way to cut the stuff was with a chisel and a big hammer! I tried a cut-off wheel, chop saw, hack saw, and found that the cut-off wheel and chop saw left a lot of debris inside the line. The hacksaw got dulled nearly immediately on the stainless braid, and the braid tended to fray too easily. Wrapping it tightly with electrical tape and chopping it with a chisel worked the best.

I also bought the Aeroquip vise jaw inserts, which I found to be of great help in the assembly of the fittings. Sometimes it’s worth it to just buy the right tool.

Fuel Safe Sportsman

I lucked out and found a guy who had bought a 16 gallon Fuel Safe for his Mustang, and hadn’t installed it. So it was new – still in the box – and at a used price.  The Centroid sending unit that it had installed was not the right ohm range for my gauge (I bought a full set of Stewart Warner Stage III gauges from Ray), so I had to get a new one of those. No problem there though.