spitfires
[Top] [All Lists]

Chronic Vapor Lock: Longish

To: spitfires@autox.team.net
Subject: Chronic Vapor Lock: Longish
From: Jjcousins@ra.rockwell.com
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 14:07:34 -0400
Hello List,

My car suffers from chronic vapor lock.  I've been (mostly) successfully
dealing with it for the last 3 years.  Here's the deal:

When I travel on the highway and then get off, maybe drive for 10 more
minutes of back roads and then shut off the car.  I will be able to start
her after sitting for 5-15 minutes, but sure as S#@% 2 minutes after
running, it will sputter and die.  No fuel.  After that, NO amount of
cranking (which I don't like to do) will start her.  After sitting another
45-60 minutes (engine cools), starts up and away I go.  This happened to me
a couple times a few years ago.  Since then, I have dealt with it by:

*After highway, shut off and forget about it (like at work) for hours
*Drive back roads after highway driving (<50 mpg or start/stop) for about
30 minutes to get out of "eminent vapor lock mode."

I've also had the problem when it is REALLY HOT out like 90 degrees and
travelling on highway, it actually got sputtering and I limped to a parking
lot and I had to wait the 45 minutes to go.  FWIW, the car runs very cool -
on this day (90+ degs) it was 1/2 mark past 1/2.  Usually runs 1/2 mark
under 1/2.  (Yes, I've had it go to nearly full hot before, so the guage
works : - )   ).

So, here's my car:  150 CD, Headers, after headers, a straight pipe out to
a muffler (no cat).  The PO had this problem ("If it's really hot out, it
dies") and he had crappy custom exhaust out to a cat UNDER the car out to a
stock muffler.

Here's more info (maybe or not relevant), if the car sits for a week or so,
it seems the fuel in the line (to the carb) evaporates (or gets sucked back
into the tank) so I have to crank for a few seconds (a couple of 4 second
sessions) to start her.  If the car sits for only a day, hardly any
cranking.  And linearly between there.

I plan to switch to an electric fuel pump BACK AT THE TANK in order to PUSH
the gas into the carb (increases pressure) rather than suck it, (which
would lower the pressure = boil).  Will this solve/alleviate somewhat my
problem?

Help?

Thanks,
John Cousins

///
///  spitfires@autox.team.net mailing list
///  To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
///  with nothing in it but
///
///     unsubscribe spitfires
///
///


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>