I recently picked a '78 Vette, with a stroked 427, roller cam, rectangular port cast iron heads, dart intake, 1150 dominator, and a big shot nitrous kit.

The car was put together pretty well, but has been sitting for awhile, and needed freshening up. I had the front end aligned, replaced the heim joints in the ladder bar setup, added some new rear coilovers, and just finished installing the nitrous bottle.

It has a fuel cell in the rear, with two seperate systems: a Mallory 140 pump on the carb system, and a Holley blue pump feeding the nitrous side. I tightened up all of the fittings, opened the bottle, and made a few passes the other day. The fuel pressure on the nitrous side was only getting up to 6psi, and fading to 4 on occasion. My single shot nitrous plate has the 225hp pill in it, and was not coming on when I put it to the floor. I checked the micro switch on the carb, and it was working fine. I found out that the car has a fuel pressure safety switch, so if the pressure is too low, then the nitrous solenoids will not ground. I picked up a black pump today, and that should take care of my pressure issues on the nitrous side.

My question is this. The Mallory 140 should be adequate to feed the carb side, but when I am just on the motor, the pressure starts to drop as well. It creeps down to around 4psi on the big end. Both sides have a fram cartridge-type fuel filter right after the pumps. Does anyone know if these filters should flow enough to feed my rig? I have heard that I should pull the elements out, and run an in-line filter, such as the stainless mesh type, with the aluminum bodies.

Does anyone have any experience with this type of an issue, and any help/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

--Monza