Fuelling
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I opted for the Alloy tank that Sylva now do for the Striker rather than a modified Mini van tank for a couple of reasons: it is a bit lighter, makes good use of the available space and won’t have any problems with corrosion that would otherwise mean it needing painting. From an aesthetic point of view it looks a bit more special too and results in the filler cap being in the middle of the rear body so I don’t have a third car to remember which side the filler cap is on when I go for petrol. I also opted to use the smallest Facet solid state fuel pump, which is rated at 12G/hr at 2-3psi. The fuel pump in the R1 is rated at 2.84psi and so I didn’t think that the pressure of the Facet pump would be too much for the needle valves in the carbs unlike some of the higher pressure models that seem to need a pressure regulator and then seem to suffer from low flow rates. 12G/hr of flow is rated at 130bhp by Facet, but if you do the half-a-pint per brake horsepower per hour rule of thumb calculation then it is actually sufficient for 200hp. Also most importantly others had run the R1 with this pump successfully and found them to flow far more than specified. The alternative would have been a pump from the R1 or even something like a blade as they all seem to be pretty similar. Perhaps if the Facet proves to be as unreliable as they are reputed to be then a Japanese pump will find its way on at some point.
Before I mounted the tank it was necessary to fit the fuel sender. This was purchased from ETB instruments to suit the CustomAutotech Digidash unit as is a ‘Smith’s type’ with a float on the end of an arm. There are a couple of baffles in the ends of the tank but more than enough space for the sender. I shortened the length of the arm by bending it into an S shape so that the arm was operating through its full range with the float on the top/bottom of the tank. Making a hole in the tank without filling it with swarf is probably impossible. The best I could some up with was making the hole upside-down with the tank held on the workbench with a roofrack strap and then cleaning out around the hole inside the tank afterwards. The sender was mounted with self-tapping screws and a little panel bonder to help it seal.
The fuel tank came with a bit of aluminium angle, which is held in place with the rear lower wishbone bolts. Apart from this there were no clues in the build manual, but I had seen a tank mounted in the factory and it really only fitted in one place – resting on the angle and onto the rearmost chassis member. The tank overhangs the angle by a little over two inches on each side and it seemed obvious to me that this was intended for some straps to secure it in place. There is insufficient room between the tank and wishbones for anything to be bolted to the angle and the rearmost chassis member provided a perfect surface. With the tank resting on the angle on its front edge it seemed to need securing from dropping down at the rear or shifting around. With some 2” by 3mm aluminium flats I made up some straps to go around each end of the tank, which were bolted through the front edge of the rear chassis member so that the top surface was left clear for the boot floor. It would have been easier to make the straps in one piece, but I didn’t have two long enough bits of flat (which were scrounged for nothing anyway) so I made them with a join at the top front of the tank. The tank was secured to the angle by copious quantities of panel bonder and then the straps to the tank. Certainly going nowhere now. I gave the tank a quick rinse through with some fuel to make sure that any remaining swarf was out.
I spent ages thinking about where to mount to fuel pump as there was no obvious place to put it. In the end I made up a little bracket out of an off cut from the straps which I riveted to the chassis just in front of the tank and as low down as it would go so that it cleared the tank and allowed for good pipe runs. I used the Facet scew on filter/union on the tank end of the pump and a short length of fuel hose to the tank outlet. Then another short length of hose out from the pump to the 5/16” solid fuel line, which I had managed to bend almost right up to the pump. The fuel line was secured to the left-hand upper tunnel rail in a similar manner to the brake pipe on the right-hand side with rubber lined p-clips every 150mm. The fuel line comes out in the bonnet area just below the carbs with another short length of pipe up to the carbs. The fuel inlet into the carbs isn’t actually detailed in the service manual, but it is the one in-between carbs 2 and 3 with a double bead on it.
I quicky tested the pump for flow into a bucket under the engine and then connected it up to the carbs. Running the pump you could hear the fuel filling the float chambers and then the pump quietened down when full. No leaks anywhere, which was nice.
Just need some cooling and sparks now…