Thread: When to use an electric fuel pump?

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Originally Posted by bucs012

I have been learing a lot about cars/engines the past few years. I am wondering why so many people seem to run electric fuel pumps on street driven hot rods. I have always ran mechanical on various engines 350 and 396 up to 480 HP on the street with normal mechanical fuel pumps. These were never on the stip though.

At what point must you use an electric pump? Just looking to learn more about this area.

I think the primary reason, on my car at least, is that there is no room for a mechanical fuel pump with the steering linkage to the R&P. Electric was the only option for me....

My previous car was a street/strip 65 GTO with a 389 tripower and a 4 speed.

After much fiddling I got it to run 13.30's pretty regularly. Then one Sunday , it stalled when I did the burnout. It had never done that before. It restarted and everything was fine, BUT, it got me wondering if I was running out of fuel with prolonged high RPM.I added a Carter electric pump, and the next weekend the car ran a 12.97 and speed jumped from an average of 105+ to over 107 MPH!!

Prior to stalling that one time it never displayed any symptoms of fuel starvation. It always pulled strongly all the way through the quarter.

The engine probably made an honest 340 HP.

Food for thought.