Fuel pump to inside the tank.


<HR style="COLOR: #666666" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->In the past two years that I have owned my PSD I have come to learn that Ford really botched it when they designed the fuel delivery system on the Powerstroke.

It all started with the realization that air was being introduced into the fuel stream at every quick connect that was upstream of the fuel pump inlet. That same air was sent to the fuel filter housing where it was either sent to the dead head injector rail for the fuel injectors to have to pass it through themselves in order to get rid of it, or it was sent back out the fuel pressure regulator to the little mixing chamber where the fuel ( and air ) was reintroduced back into the fuel stream that the fuel pump was drawing out of the tank.
So now we have some air in the fuel from the first pass through the pump and filter and that same airated fuel is now being drawn toward the fuel pump right through the same quick connects that are upstream of the fuel pump. Guess what? MORE AIR is being introduced to the fuel stream, adding to what was there from the first time. Ok now this even more airated fuel is being sent to the fuel filter housing and either going through the injectors or being sent back to the same mixing chamber AGAIN! More air keeps getting added on this circular route that the fuel is being forced to flow until you have the equivelant of beer foam for fuel.
So I went and did the Hutch mod and elimination of the quick connects. That got rid of the air in the fuel stream, but now I could hear my fuel pump laboring to pull the fuel from the rear mounted tank all the way up to where the pump is mounted under the driver's seat on the frame rail. Every morning I could hear the unmistakable "mad bee" sound coming from my starving fuel pump.
So I moved it back to the top of the fuel tank. It cut the sound in half but did not eliminate it.
Then Cookie88 made the discovery of having a pre-pump to give a boost to the main pump. That gave me this current idea of relocating the pump to the end of the pickup. I don't have a Dahl or anything like that so I don't have to worry about overpressuring a filter canister like that. I haven't driven it enough yet to say if it's any better, but for sure the fuel pump is quieter now! It's inlet is inside the pickup screen. I made the most careful measurement to ensure that the pickup was floating JUST ABOVE the floor of the tank, but not quite touching it. It's about 1/8" off the floor. So there is no resistance to flow right into the fuel pump inlet.

Here's the first picture in the gallery.
Link to gallery:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...&albumid=21855

I'm not going to try and explain with words how to get the job done, because I think that most trucks are different than mine. It's a 550 and it has a steel tank. I believe that most of you have a plastic tank so any description that I would attempt to give you would be usless. The pictures are great for you all to get some ideas though if you ever want to try it.
One word of caution: The wire that feeds power to the pump needs to be fuel rated. I didn't think of that until I was ready to install the converted pickup into the tank. I called around and nobody has wire available that is rated to run inside a fuel tank. I know it's out there because every fuel level sender has wires going to it. All I could get the sales rep to say is that it's fuel "resistant". That's not fuel "proof" to me. I had to drive home so I made sure that if the insulation dissolved that the bare wire would not touch anything and spark. I will continue to search for the right wire and when I find it, the tank comes back out and I change them.
Would I do it again? Yes. Without hesitation. Ford should have done it this way from the start. They put the fuel pumps for the gassers in the tanks, why not the diesels.




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Is this vw pump you had mounted on the frame? Nice job on the work by the way. What made you decide to do this instead of a pre pump pump? Any advantage or disadvantage?

 

That's one small step for Kwikk, but a giant leap for powerstroke owners.

And so the fuel pump race ends, you can't get much closer to the fuel pickup than that.
Kinda limits the possibilities for a pre-pump filter though, doesn't it.

 

Edited out: redundant post in a merged thread.

 

One other thing, if anyone wants the high res pics, PM me and I'll email them to you.

 

That is the same pump. I did it this way because of the limitless fuel supply for the pump at the end of the pickup. And I don't have to run two pumps this way. It's still a single pump instead of two in series. It may work out better to run two. I will know that answer tomorrow morning when it's cold and the fuel is cold as well. That's when the pump made it's starving sounds. 5 minutes later it was quiet, but I knew that the pump was working too hard.

 

I had to choose what I wanted here. I looked inside the tank and after running a couple hundred gallons of B-50 Biodiesel the inside of the tank looked like new stainless steel. ZERO rust, dirt, not even any sediment. So I figured that it was ok to run with just the course pickup screen. With about 4 miles on it so far it's too soon to really say, but I think it will work out.

 

Kwikk, you did kind of provide yourself with a source of fuel tank wire in your post if you can't just find some locally. Could always go to bone yard and get wires off of an in tank pump there.

 

man kwik... that's way beyond anything i could do... but i have to hand it to you... i think you have dramatically improved upon the stock setup..!

 

That's probably what I'll end up doing. Cannabalizing a wrecked car's in tank wiring. I would have done that today, but the thought never occurred to me until it was time to stick the thing in. DOH!

 

Is that pump submersible?


Why not weld in a sump and gravity feed the pump from the sump?

 

Dan, your the man. Now I have to re-think my whole weekend project.

 

I thought about an external fitting like that, but was more concerned about rock strikes breaking it off.

Yes, every pump like this is submersible. I'll go and see if I can google a diagram of how these pumps work.
In a nutshell they draw the fuel straight through the electric motor part of the pump and then into the pump housing itself where it is sent out under pressure to the engine. They are 100% "submerged" on the inside of the housing regardless of what's on the outside of the pump. So it matters not one bit whether it's submerged or not.

 

The single biggest advantage is the possibility of "pumping" air through the fuel system is eliminated completely. Couple that with Kwik's or any of the other regulated return systems that open up the fuel rails in the heads and it becomes all but impossible to damage an injector through air injestion. Another advantage is that priming the system is a complete non issue. Pour in the fuel, turn the key...fuel system is primed.

The only big disadvantage for most if us is you can't buy it. You have to build your own entirely custom high pressure system from inside the tank to the filter....and if the pump ever does fail the tank has to come back down. The upside to that is the pumps longevity should be vastly increased due to the reduced strain and abundance of lubrication.

 

Got ya! Same style pumps on some high HP FI cars......


I don't think the sump would get beat up too bad. I drove a sumped gas tank on the street for years. No leaks, etc....