So he started calling some of his friends with hot rods to see if they had any suggestions as to what was causing his problem and found they had engine problems when they drove in hot weather.

As it turns out, if it is summer in the Midwest, hot and you are driving around town with a gas tank half full or lower, the gas in the tank is sloshing all around. Especially when the driver turns left or right, stops quickly, or jumps on the throttle. Driving your hot rod on a hot summer day can also heat up the gas in the fuel tank pretty quickly. Once that happens, the pump will literally suck the fuel to vapor, boiling it in the pickup tube.

When the fuel is vaporized instead of a liquid, the pump is unhappy and will “cavitate” --  the engine stumbles, spits and will eventually fail, killing the engine. This is what is known as vapor-lock and when that happens generally you and your ride are parked by the side of the road in 100+ temps and no one is happy.

So, what is the solution? Actually there are several things that can be done to correct the problem. 

(1) You can modify the stock tank and reposition the remote pump. Any fuel tank that feeds a remote fuel pump needs baffling to help insure adequate fuel at the point of pick up at all times. You could also install larger diameter supply lines and make sure the remote pump is gravity fed. This fix includes fabricating and adding a “sump” to the stock tank and, if you are really serious, installing baffles in the stock tank to help keep fuel close to the stock fuel pickup.

(2) The second option is to modify the stock tank to accept an in-tank submerged fuel pump and eliminate the remote fuel pump and lines.

That is the fix that Romine opted for and where Aeromotive’s Phantom Fuel System and Steve Matusek enter the picture.  Aeromotive Fuel Systems had sponsored Romine’s  “Man O’ War” AA/FC in the past, so Romine called Aeromotive CEO and racer Steve Matusek who, it turned out, had been having the same problems with his slightly modified ‘70s Caddy.

Aeromotive originally designed the Phantom Fuel System for EFI conversions and late model transplant applications to solve fuel delivery problems. Not only does the Phantom System place the fuel pump inside the stock tank but it comes with its own self-contained baffling system that helps maintains proper fuel levels around the fuel pump pickup at all times to eliminate issues related to fuel slosh. It can be used with a carbureted system or EFI, with the proper return style fuel pressure regulator.

Once Romine determined what was causing his hot rod’s engine to be totally unreliable and his truck unusable, he decided to replace the external fuel pump system he had with one of Aeromotive’s systems.

The first thing he did was put the truck on the rack and remove the stock fuel tank and remote fuel pump that was attached to the stock pickup tube.