Jegs offers a fuel cell/ pump combo for just what you need.
71 f100 4.6 fuel system questions
This is my first post here and I’m hoping to get some help with the fuel system for my truck. I’ve looked around and can’t seem to find anything to pony me in the right direction. I’ve got a 71 sclb f100 vic ifs swap, s550 irs swap, 2011 2v 4.6 and a 4r70w, I plan on using a Holley terminator to run everything. But my question is what fuel pump do I need? I plan on running a fuel cell in the bed so the sky is the limit but I’m leaving it stock horsepower for now but one day would like to grow to an undetermined number. I assume a return style system would be the way to go as well?
1 - 11 of 11 Posts
When you get the Holley it will have in the instructions how to run the fuel lines.
You'll need an adjustable fuel pressure regulator.
I would use aftermarket fuel rails.
Also recommend Lowdoller Motorsports fuel pressure sender, cheaper than the Holley unit.
You'll need an adjustable fuel pressure regulator.
I would use aftermarket fuel rails.
Also recommend Lowdoller Motorsports fuel pressure sender, cheaper than the Holley unit.
Returnless Mass Air Flow systems provide significant advantages over return style Speed Density systems. If the car is primarily a race car, the return style will serve you well. If the car is primarily a street car, the returnless will serve you well.
If you run a return-style system with a relatively low-powered engine, you can use it very successfully on the street. Detroit did this all the time during the 80s. At the extreme end of that argument, if you run return style on a 750 RWHP car and you daily drive the car, you will only need somewhere between 25 to less than 50 hp to operate the car 99.9% of the time. If your fuel system supports 900 HP (you gave yourself headroom) you will need to return 850 to 875 HP of fuel to the tank continuously.
The continuous return of up to 97% of your fuel system's volume will boil off the octane-enhancing light ends in the fuel as they are heated in the engine compartment and returned to the tank. This will leave you with a tank full of base stock and the vaporized remains of the octane enhancers the oil company added to the fuel to get its' octane up. A low-octane fuel in a high-output engine usually has an unhappy ending. If you have ever opened your tank to refuel during the summer months and were met with that whooshing sound as you cracked the gas cap then you have already experienced the vaporized light ends that refineries add to their base stock to up the octane numbers.
That said, returnless systems are not an easy system to properly set up for clean fuel delivery. To properly configure the fuel delivery portion of your system, you will need to be able to build a working voltage table the ECU will use to reference for controlling pump speeds during engine operation. If you use an OEM Ford system, Ford has already done this for you. In addition, you will need to be familiar with how to configure your fuel pump control PID. If you do a bad job, the car will suffer hesitations during gear changes, burst FRPS sensor diaphragms and other unhappy events.
This is a link to a very good write up done a long time ago by the guys down a Sutton Performance. At the time they were the only people that could make the returnless systems run correctly on the high horsepower engines. Click here => Fuel System PID Control read post #42 by Jerry at Sutton HP. Jerry give you chapter and verse on how to do the job. He also begins by showing you a NASA video on fly by wire pilot induced aircraft oscillations attributable to a control algorithym that was in need of a properly designed and programmed PID controller. BTW what that F8 does in the go portion of its touch and go is exactly what the fuel system does, pressure-wise, without proper PID control.
What is a PID controller and how does it work? Here is a very good Wikipedia write up that explains it with a minimum of techno-bable and some excellent graphics, click here => Wiki PID Controllers. BTW, Ford and some of the aftermarket EFI providers offer this level of control in their aftermarket ECUs. If you intend to run returnless, you need to read this stuff and incorporae it into your tune. Jerry Sutton gives you the cheat sheet in his write up for the Ford ECU. That I am aware of Holley does not support this. MegaSquirt in their MS3Pro PnP system does.
How big a problem is the return volume? If you have a 750 HP fuel system and you only need enough fuel for 25 HP that means you are returning 97% of the fuel the pumps pump back to the tank. Lets say you are using two of the TI 450 LPH pumps, that means the pumps move 240 GPH (in round numbers) and you are returning 233 GPH continuously to the tank. You pump a complete 18 gallon tank of gas back to the tank through your return line every 4.6minutes. This will quickly heat the fuel above the boiling point for the light ends used to add octane — they boil off around 87 ˚F to 90 ˚F.
This is an unhappy situation. You can somewhat mitigate it by staging your fuel pumps as long as they are not turbine pumps. If you shut doen a turbine pump it will leak gas back to the tankkilling line pressure from the other pump. That can also be mitigated by using smaller positive displacement pumps and then staging them. A number of the aftermarket EFI companies like Aeromotive offer pump speed controllers. Here is a link to an Aeromotive Pump Speed Controller which will control a single pump, click here =>Aeromotive Pump Speed Controller
I haven't even gotten to the MAF vs Speed Density discussion so, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version. With Speed Density you need to retune your engine each time you change a cam, throttle body, blower pulley, blower or drive the car to a different altitude. If the weather changes and a high pressure or a low pressure front moves in, you need to retune your engine. Hot days need a different tune than cold days. If you change headers or exhaust systems, you need to retune once again. A MAF based system reads the pounds of air that the engine is injesting, reports it to the ECU and the ECU adjusts the injector pulse width to match the new air mass being injected. You can go to Denver or Death Valley and the MAF auto corrects for the air density changes. You can change cams, blowers, blower pullies and on and on without the need to retune the eingine. Weather changes are a non event.
If you run a return-style system with a relatively low-powered engine, you can use it very successfully on the street. Detroit did this all the time during the 80s. At the extreme end of that argument, if you run return style on a 750 RWHP car and you daily drive the car, you will only need somewhere between 25 to less than 50 hp to operate the car 99.9% of the time. If your fuel system supports 900 HP (you gave yourself headroom) you will need to return 850 to 875 HP of fuel to the tank continuously.
The continuous return of up to 97% of your fuel system's volume will boil off the octane-enhancing light ends in the fuel as they are heated in the engine compartment and returned to the tank. This will leave you with a tank full of base stock and the vaporized remains of the octane enhancers the oil company added to the fuel to get its' octane up. A low-octane fuel in a high-output engine usually has an unhappy ending. If you have ever opened your tank to refuel during the summer months and were met with that whooshing sound as you cracked the gas cap then you have already experienced the vaporized light ends that refineries add to their base stock to up the octane numbers.
That said, returnless systems are not an easy system to properly set up for clean fuel delivery. To properly configure the fuel delivery portion of your system, you will need to be able to build a working voltage table the ECU will use to reference for controlling pump speeds during engine operation. If you use an OEM Ford system, Ford has already done this for you. In addition, you will need to be familiar with how to configure your fuel pump control PID. If you do a bad job, the car will suffer hesitations during gear changes, burst FRPS sensor diaphragms and other unhappy events.
This is a link to a very good write up done a long time ago by the guys down a Sutton Performance. At the time they were the only people that could make the returnless systems run correctly on the high horsepower engines. Click here => Fuel System PID Control read post #42 by Jerry at Sutton HP. Jerry give you chapter and verse on how to do the job. He also begins by showing you a NASA video on fly by wire pilot induced aircraft oscillations attributable to a control algorithym that was in need of a properly designed and programmed PID controller. BTW what that F8 does in the go portion of its touch and go is exactly what the fuel system does, pressure-wise, without proper PID control.
What is a PID controller and how does it work? Here is a very good Wikipedia write up that explains it with a minimum of techno-bable and some excellent graphics, click here => Wiki PID Controllers. BTW, Ford and some of the aftermarket EFI providers offer this level of control in their aftermarket ECUs. If you intend to run returnless, you need to read this stuff and incorporae it into your tune. Jerry Sutton gives you the cheat sheet in his write up for the Ford ECU. That I am aware of Holley does not support this. MegaSquirt in their MS3Pro PnP system does.
How big a problem is the return volume? If you have a 750 HP fuel system and you only need enough fuel for 25 HP that means you are returning 97% of the fuel the pumps pump back to the tank. Lets say you are using two of the TI 450 LPH pumps, that means the pumps move 240 GPH (in round numbers) and you are returning 233 GPH continuously to the tank. You pump a complete 18 gallon tank of gas back to the tank through your return line every 4.6minutes. This will quickly heat the fuel above the boiling point for the light ends used to add octane — they boil off around 87 ˚F to 90 ˚F.
This is an unhappy situation. You can somewhat mitigate it by staging your fuel pumps as long as they are not turbine pumps. If you shut doen a turbine pump it will leak gas back to the tankkilling line pressure from the other pump. That can also be mitigated by using smaller positive displacement pumps and then staging them. A number of the aftermarket EFI companies like Aeromotive offer pump speed controllers. Here is a link to an Aeromotive Pump Speed Controller which will control a single pump, click here =>Aeromotive Pump Speed Controller
I haven't even gotten to the MAF vs Speed Density discussion so, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version. With Speed Density you need to retune your engine each time you change a cam, throttle body, blower pulley, blower or drive the car to a different altitude. If the weather changes and a high pressure or a low pressure front moves in, you need to retune your engine. Hot days need a different tune than cold days. If you change headers or exhaust systems, you need to retune once again. A MAF based system reads the pounds of air that the engine is injesting, reports it to the ECU and the ECU adjusts the injector pulse width to match the new air mass being injected. You can go to Denver or Death Valley and the MAF auto corrects for the air density changes. You can change cams, blowers, blower pullies and on and on without the need to retune the eingine. Weather changes are a non event.
So I’m not trying to spend 1000$ on a fuel pump that will handle 1000hp because this truck will be closer to a daily driver / street toy than anything else, so all I really need to know is what’s a good size pump that won’t boil fuel and will be able to seamlessly run a 250(now) 400(later) hp 4.6, I’m also not trying to break the bank I’m 21 this is my first swap like this so I’m very new to the whole efi scene. I drove this truck in high school with the old 302/c4 set up and I’ve got a mustang with a 289 and a t5 both carb vehiclesReturnless Mass Air Flow systems provide significant advantages over return style Speed Density systems. If the car is primarily a race car, the return style will serve you well. If the car is primarily a street car, the returnless will serve you well.
If you run a return-style system with a relatively low-powered engine, you can use it very successfully on the street. Detroit did this all the time during the 80s. At the extreme end of that argument, if you run return style on a 750 RWHP car and you daily drive the car, you will only need somewhere between 25 to less than 50 hp to operate the car 99.9% of the time. If your fuel system supports 900 HP (you gave yourself headroom) you will need to return 850 to 875 HP of fuel to the tank continuously.
The continuous return of up to 97% of your fuel system's volume will boil off the octane-enhancing light ends in the fuel as they are heated in the engine compartment and returned to the tank. This will leave you with a tank full of base stock and the vaporized remains of the octane enhancers the oil company added to the fuel to get its' octane up. A low-octane fuel in a high-output engine usually has an unhappy ending. If you have ever opened your tank to refuel during the summer months and were met with that whooshing sound as you cracked the gas cap then you have already experienced the vaporized light ends that refineries add to their base stock to up the octane numbers.
That said, returnless systems are not an easy system to properly set up for clean fuel delivery. To properly configure the fuel delivery portion of your system, you will need to be able to build a working voltage table the ECU will use to reference for controlling pump speeds during engine operation. If you use an OEM Ford system, Ford has already done this for you. In addition, you will need to be familiar with how to configure your fuel pump control PID. If you do a bad job, the car will suffer hesitations during gear changes, burst FRPS sensor diaphragms and other unhappy events.
This is a link to a very good write up done a long time ago by the guys down a Sutton Performance. At the time they were the only people that could make the returnless systems run correctly on the high horsepower engines. Click here => Fuel System PID Control read post #42 by Jerry at Sutton HP. Jerry give you chapter and verse on how to do the job. He also begins by showing you a NASA video on fly by wire pilot induced aircraft oscillations attributable to a control algorithym that was in need of a properly designed and programmed PID controller. BTW what that F8 does in the go portion of its touch and go is exactly what the fuel system does, pressure-wise, without proper PID control.
What is a PID controller and how does it work? Here is a very good Wikipedia write up that explains it with a minimum of techno-bable and some excellent graphics, click here => Wiki PID Controllers. BTW, Ford and some of the aftermarket EFI providers offer this level of control in their aftermarket ECUs. If you intend to run returnless, you need to read this stuff and incorporae it into your tune. Jerry Sutton gives you the cheat sheet in his write up for the Ford ECU. That I am aware of Holley does not support this. MegaSquirt in their MS3Pro PnP system does.
How big a problem is the return volume? If you have a 750 HP fuel system and you only need enough fuel for 25 HP that means you are returning 97% of the fuel the pumps pump back to the tank. Lets say you are using two of the TI 450 LPH pumps, that means the pumps move 240 GPH (in round numbers) and you are returning 233 GPH continuously to the tank. You pump a complete 18 gallon tank of gas back to the tank through your return line every 4.6minutes. This will quickly heat the fuel above the boiling point for the light ends used to add octane — they boil off around 87 ˚F to 90 ˚F.
This is an unhappy situation. You can somewhat mitigate it by staging your fuel pumps as long as they are not turbine pumps. If you shut doen a turbine pump it will leak gas back to the tankkilling line pressure from the other pump. That can also be mitigated by using smaller positive displacement pumps and then staging them. A number of the aftermarket EFI companies like Aeromotive offer pump speed controllers. Here is a link to an Aeromotive Pump Speed Controller which will control a single pump, click here =>Aeromotive Pump Speed Controller
I haven't even gotten to the MAF vs Speed Density discussion so, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version. With Speed Density you need to retune your engine each time you change a cam, throttle body, blower pulley, blower or drive the car to a different altitude. If the weather changes and a high pressure or a low pressure front moves in, you need to retune your engine. Hot days need a different tune than cold days. If you change headers or exhaust systems, you need to retune once again. A MAF based system reads the pounds of air that the engine is injesting, reports it to the ECU and the ECU adjusts the injector pulse width to match the new air mass being injected. You can go to Denver or Death Valley and the MAF auto corrects for the air density changes. You can change cams, blowers, blower pullies and on and on without the need to retune the eingine. Weather changes are a non event.
I was looking on JEGS last night and like @Metalriff said they have some pretty decent cells that come with a pump and a sending unit for around 6-700$ I just don’t know if it will to much or to little fuel, my experience with fuel systems is bolting a mechanical pump to a timing cover and plumbing it to a carb and going for a drive, but I was planing on after market rails for ease of plumbing alsoWhen you get the Holley it will have in the instructions how to run the fuel lines.
You'll need an adjustable fuel pressure regulator.
I would use aftermarket fuel rails.
Also recommend Lowdoller Motorsports fuel pressure sender, cheaper than the Holley unit.
A carb-to-EFI conversion is expensive, pretty much no matter how you approach it. If you just want to enjoy your vehicle, put a carb on it. The $600 to $800 price tag on a new Holley will seem like a big number until you see the EFI number. The $600 to $800 Holley price tag will blossom into a $4,000+ EFI price tag before you get sophisticated about the conversion. Sophistication will add significantly. to that price tag.
In the end, it is your money, so you should do what makes you happy.
In the end, it is your money, so you should do what makes you happy.
It’s a modular 4.6 out of a 2011 Vic not efi swapping the Windsor, going to use a Holley to run it so don’t have to use the Vic’s wiring for simplicity and tune abilityA carb-to-EFI conversion is expensive, pretty much no matter how you approach it. If you just want to enjoy your vehicle, put a carb on it. The $600 to $800 price tag on a new Holley will seem like a big number until you see the EFI number. The $600 to $800 Holley price tag will blossom into a $4,000+ EFI price tag before you get sophisticated about the conversion. Sophistication will add significantly. to that price tag.
In the end, it is your money, so you should do what makes you happy.
I have a 79 F100, I swapped out my stock fuel tank for a Boyd’s tank that has an AC Delco MU101 in tank fuel pump.
I have a 4.6 4v engine, 4 r70w tranny with the Holley Terminator XMax with twin turbos, will be ready to fire up this June.
I’m running a Fatman fabrication ifs, parallel 4 link rear with a 95 town car 8.8 rear with 373:1 gears.
Soulless Innovations makes a rear mount aluminum tank for your truck.
They will be at the Grand National F100 truck show in Pigeon Forge Tennessee next month
May 18-20
This is the largest F100 show in the Nation.
If you can’t find what you need here you need to sell the truck….lol
you’ve already spent some cash on what you’ve done so far, an aluminum tank will set you back 600-800 and the fuel pump was 220.00 online.
I have a 4.6 4v engine, 4 r70w tranny with the Holley Terminator XMax with twin turbos, will be ready to fire up this June.
I’m running a Fatman fabrication ifs, parallel 4 link rear with a 95 town car 8.8 rear with 373:1 gears.
Soulless Innovations makes a rear mount aluminum tank for your truck.
They will be at the Grand National F100 truck show in Pigeon Forge Tennessee next month
May 18-20
This is the largest F100 show in the Nation.
If you can’t find what you need here you need to sell the truck….lol
you’ve already spent some cash on what you’ve done so far, an aluminum tank will set you back 600-800 and the fuel pump was 220.00 online.
I saw a 53-54 Chevy car tank used in a Bumpside F100 recently. The outlet comes out the side and looks like the 73 up F100 tanks but is narrow enough to fit the earlier frame. He had the filler cap on the flat area on the inside of the bed that is about 4" above the floor. Tanks Inc makes one for EFI and I like the fact that you don't have the fuel inlet in the middle of the floor of the bed.
Running the EFI pump in the tank behind the seat worries me a bit and is loud.
Running the EFI pump in the tank behind the seat worries me a bit and is loud.
EFI pumps are never truly quiet but in-tank pumps are less noisy than external pumps. Turbine pumps will be quieter than positive displacement pumps.
1 - 11 of 11 Posts
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