fuel sampling ports

[acco205]

What are the requirements on this? And what did you use?

Its in the rules, but its on of those things that I haven't seen in anyones build thread and just generally cant seem to find a whole lot of info on (as it pertains to rallying, anyway).

[alosix]

We talked about this with hoche a while back. Seems to come from some oddball OLD scca requirement.

1.) There is a place that makes some reasonable ones that are ready to go for other SCCA events. I need to look it up again though.

2.) The regional guys barely ever check because well, they don't have the funds/equipment to test fuel.

So.. I'd put it pretty low on your prep list.

[driveclimbslide]

I got mine from Pegasus and it sits in a parts bin. Two years of racing and it hasn't come out yet.

[kturner]

I have the Pegasus sampling port as well. It is tee'd into the return line on the drivers strut tower. I have never had my fuel sampled but in my experience they almost always look to see if a sampling port is present. Pretty sure it's just an RA thing.

https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/pr...asp?RecID=3447

[hoche]

It's not an old SCCA requirement, per se. I'm not sure when it started exactly, but it's a valid current R-A requirement. 2012 R-A Regs, section 10.1.E:

E. Fuel
1. All Performance Rally vehicles are required to use either:
a. Unleaded gasoline with a minimum specific gravity of 0.735 at 60
degrees Fahrenheit and containing no MTBE.
b. Diesel fuel.
c. Alternative fuels (e.g., Propane) must be approved by the
Technical Director 90 days in advance of the event.
Rally America will be testing for lead, MTBE and specific gravity at
national events as well as selected regional events.
2. Use of nitrous oxide (as a fuel or an oxidizer) is explicitly prohibited.
3. Fuel Sample Acquisition: All rally vehicles shall be equipped with an
easily accessible sampling valve/port located between the fuel tank
and the carburetor(s) or fuel injection. To avoid spillage, the
sampling valve/port shall not consist of removing a fuel line from any
fuel system component unless a dry break fitting has been installed.
In all cases competitors shall provide the labor and appropriate
tooling necessary to safely obtain the sample. A manned fire
extinguisher shall be present whenever samples are being acquired.

Justification:
Leaded gas is illegal for use in licensed street-driven vehicles in the US, and has been for over fifteen years.
MTBE is nasty stuff, gets into ground water, is banned in eight states, and has severe usage restrictions in several more.
The specific gravity check I don't know the exact reason for. It's probably to prevent the use of super expensive high-octane oxygenated fuels.


That being said, yeah, it's mostly not checked at regional events because no one has the equipment for it. However, sometimes the equipment is available and you may be checked! It's even possible that you'll get dinged for not having the port even if they're not checking fuel at the event. In other words, "I'm just doing regional events" is not a valid excuse for non-compliance.

-michel

[erik*a]

I was told when I built my car that RA won't check the fuel unless you have a turbo car with a national entry. Fuel is open in regional- Chris Martin from Canada was working on bringing his E-85 powered STi to NEFR and couldn't get them to waiver him for the national but regional was fine. It's a seemingly simple to install, maybe I should get one?

[hoche]

I don't think there's any restriction on E85. At least, it's not one of the listed prohibited additives and having it raises the specific gravity.

And, uh...I've been checked in my G2 N/A Golf...

[Anders Green]

Originally Posted by alosix

Seems to come from some oddball OLD scca requirement.

Originally Posted by hoche

It's not an old SCCA requirement, per se. I'm not sure when it started exactly, but it's a valid current R-A requirement. 2012 R-A Regs, section 10.1.E:

..snip..
3. Fuel Sample Acquisition: All rally vehicles shall be equipped with an
easily accessible sampling valve/port located between the fuel tank
and the carburetor(s) or fuel injection. To avoid spillage, the
sampling valve/port shall not consist of removing a fuel line from any
fuel system component unless a dry break fitting has been installed.
In all cases competitors shall provide the labor and appropriate
tooling necessary to safely obtain the sample. A manned fire
extinguisher shall be present whenever samples are being acquired.

It's an old SCCA requirement. It showed up in 2003.

Originally Posted by SCCA 2003 Pro Rally rule book

6.4.A.22.a:
Fuel Sample Acquisition: All cars shall be equipped with an
easily accessible sampling valve/port located between the
fuel tank and the carburetor(s) or fuel injectors to facilitate
acquisition of fuel samples. To avoid fuel spillage...

Lots of rally guys who initially got these ordered them from fuelports.com. You can see pictures of some of the earliest adopters here:
http://www.angelfire.com/oh5/sccafue...otosrally.html
That's my teal GC on row two.

Interesting trivia: the first couple years the SCCA published the rulebooks online, they turned on the "disallow copy" security feature so that one couldn't copy and paste. How weird would it be to come across that now?

Anders

[spiwrx]

I struggled with this one when I was building my car. After competing for do many years without, being warned a few times(more so in the days of SCCA rally) @ tech. But finally bought this one from aeromotive just because it was sexy and installed very easily.
http://m.summitracing.com/parts/AEI-15631

[pomspeed]

Originally Posted by alosix

Seems to come from some oddball OLD scca requirement.

It would be a road race thing that was just adopted over, because those road race guys will try anything to win, hehehe.

[acco205]

cool, thanks guys.

I've seen lots of people say they have never gotten dinged for it and lots of people say they have. For $20 from pegasus it seems like something you might as well just install and move on. Previously I'd only seen the trick aeromotive port, which looks nice, but is a bit spendy if it was something that no one cared if I had or not..