# Fuel starvation and ATL fuel cell



## Plumcrazy (Jan 27, 2013)

Greetings,
Having a problem with fuel starvation on my little racing bunny. 1983 GTI. The car has an ATL 15 gallon fuel cell. Inside the cell is a three door surge tank with an in tank high pressure "main" pump. Two scavenge pumps are installed in the forward corners of the cell. They dump into the surge tank. Problem is when the fuel level drops to somewhere around the five gallons till empty point the car will begin to experience fuel starvation under heavy braking and turns. The severity seems to be directly related to the amount of brake force I'm applying. It's very predictable and gets worse as the fuel continues to burn off. 
I have contacted ATL's tech support and something they want me to try routing the return away from the surge box and dump it closer to one of the scavenge pumps. The thinking is that the high volume of fuel returning to the surge tank is somehow closing the surge tanks doors or creating a lot of turbulence inside the surge tank. 
I'm planning to spend a day with the car this weekend and actually run the pumps with the fill plate off a actually watch how the fuel is moving inside the tank. Has anybody else had this problem? How did you fix it? Any other ideas or things I could look for? I'm getting tired of spending money to fix this
Regards


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## tlinerud (Oct 2, 2002)

I run an 8 gallon cell in my race rabbit. 2 pickups in the cell, but my surge tank is external. Facet pump feeds the surge tank, and the stock pump draws from the surge tank. I can run the car with only 1 gallon of fuel. When the facet pumps air, I can hear it "tick" but with a quart in the surge tank for the stock pump to draw from, it continues to run properly. The return line from the Fuel Injection (engine side) also dumps into the surge tank, and so does the return to the cell. 3 connections to the top, and one connection at the bottom.


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