View Single Post
Old 06-21-2017, 07:47 PM   #6
why?
Only happy when it rains.
 
why?'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Drives: series.blue
Location: Harnett county NC
Posts: 1,995
Thanks: 5,698
Thanked 1,265 Times in 750 Posts
Mentioned: 26 Post(s)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshoobaroo View Post
Running your fuel tank low exposes most of the inside to air, which causes rust. Leaving it full protects the tank from rusting. Steel tanks only of course. Filters clogging are exceedingly rare in plastic tanks.

About your second point, it's not allowing the pump to suck in air that causes overheating, it happens before that. The pump is cooled by being submerged, and fuel is drawn in through a venturi tube to cool it. This is not the main pickup that feeds the impeller of the pump and thus the engine. If you run it lower than where the venturi can pick up the fuel, that doesn't mean that the main pickup is sucking in air yet, but it does mean the cooling mechanism is nonfunctional.

David Tracy knows his shit. He was an engineer for FCA before working at jalopnik. Granted he oversimplified the mechanisms at work here, but some of the readership requires simpler explanations.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That is specifically why most cars are designed now with the idea that the fuel pump be totally submerged until there is very little gas left. The smart ones are designed so that the pump is still submerged when the fuel gauge is telling you it is totally empty.
why? is offline   Reply With Quote