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Escort Work Log - Lift Pump & Swirl Tank
Date
Work took place mainly throughout July 2024.
Parts
- Torques 1.5L swirl tank
- Facet fuel pump
- Hi OTP044 injection fuel pump (258 - 378 litres/hour)
- Various AN fittings and additional braided fuel hose
- 12v relay
- Miniature SPST latching toggle switch
Overview
Unfortunately, despite very few running miles on the car, the Bosch fuel pump we installed as part of the Cosworth engine conversion (a very expensive new part!) started to fail - intermittently not running. This would manifest as the inability to start the car, and when we were able to run the car on the road (in the very few times we tried it) it would stumble, hesitate and refuse to build any boost at all.
Eventually the car just refused to start, and the pump showed no signs of life - no priming noise when turning the ignition on, and no sounds of running when cranking.
Original Design
The original fuel system we installed when undertaking the Cosworth conversion was the ProAlloy fuel tank into a pre-filter, into a Bosch 0580254044 injection pump, out through a post-filter and to the fuel rail and back. The ECU was solely responsible for running the fuel pump via its normal fuel pump signal wire and a relay (since the battery is in the boot it's simple to run the pump directly from it, controlled via relay).
It's a relatively simple setup and one we though would be fine, given the car is no longer for track days or rallying.
In hindsight, the original design possibly helped to kill or at least damage the high pressure fuel pump, since it was susceptible to fuel starvation and possible drawing of air into the pump under acceleration. It's highly likely that drawing air is what killed the pump.
Modified Design
In the modified design we added a low pressure, high flow lift pump (Facet 480532E, 6-8PSI, 170 litres/hour) filling a 1.5 litre swirl tank, and the (replacement) injection pump then pulling from there.
The theory is that the injection pump then always has a constant source of fuel to pull from, so should not be damaged by occasional fuel starvation under acceleration or cornering. Since the Facet pump is literally just filling the swirl tank which then overflows back to the main tank, it requires very little effort and thus should not be overworked.
