Venting Fuel Cell

[Jerry B.]

What you should never do is bring the vent hose right up from the bladder and end it right next to the drivers ear ! He will get an earful if the cell burps or in the case of a heavy driver jumping in the car. I still see cars that have the 'stub' sticking upwards.

Deck mounted on the fill plate you can use the spring loaded bulkhead mount type of check valve. The spring and ball float inside this type of valve will shut upon a outrush of fuel from the bladder and allow incoming air. Usually these deck mounted check valves are anodized red...they come in -6 or -8 and you can see the ball inside thru the exit hole of the valve fitting. ATL, Fuel Safe or Pegasus have em. IF you dont have a check valve in the fill plate and don't want to take the plate off and retrofit, then you can use an inline and put it just above the fill plate....also availiable from sources above in -6 or -8. Then use hose as high up as practical then down just below the bodywork. You can use hardline for that or hose.

Alternatively if you have no check valve you can use the Pegasus 3216 roll over valve which pushes inside 3/8" hose or -8 hose and should be fitted just above the connection to the bladder (orient properly in vertical plane and observe polarity in/out).

Either item will allow air to come into the bladder as the fuel is burned and will (hopefully) eliminate fuel spills. Nothing will prevent some fuel whizzing out if overfilling the cell or topping right to the cap with fuel and letting the car sit on a hot day. The rules say what they say. You might think about how your configuration is done in the car rules nonwithstanding.

[rickb99]

Once again, I'm going to encourage EVERY BODY to put some kind of check valve in their fuel cell breather!

We had a historics FF roll this past weekend with NO check valve in the breather line. Yup gas was flowing out and puddling under the driver. Fortunately, no source of ignition hit it before the E-crew arrived and extracted the driver (he's okay).