How to deal with paranoia about fuel leaks

And as far as raw fuel on hot manifolds not catching fire, here is a true story. I was rallying up in far, remote northern MI many years back, and it was around midnight, near the end of the rally, and we were hitting near to 100 on one of the last long stages in the middle of nowhere, when all of a sudden the car ('71 Opel Ascona), sputters and slows to a halt. Well, I leave the ignition on and fule pump, throw off the belts to jump out and lift the hood, and I swear to god, it was a small waterfall of gas pouring out of the carb and right down on the hot exhaust manifold. (The Opel 1.9L has the intake and exhaust manifolds stacked just like the /6.) I screamed at the co-driver to shut off the fuel pump and ignition (didn't think to tell him to get the h*** out!), and just stood there for a bit, waiting for it to explode. It didn't; the fuel just kept evaporating off of the super hot exhaust. So, no fire.

Turns our the float in the 500 cfm Holley had broken off at the hinge (due to all of the rough road impacts and vibrations). Made it to the end of the rally by just manually turning the fuel pump off when it started to flood, and then on again.

So, yes, the comment that liquid fuel is hard to ignite has truth to it. I was just in good shape with the resulting gas vapors since there are no electrics on that side of that engine except for the oil pressure sender.

I relate all of this hoping to let the OP know that fuel leaks aren't guaranteed fires, and that the intake-over-exhaust arrangement of the /6 is not inherently bad for such. Oil is the biggie for starting fires in race cars, BTW. We just had a EVO9 burn to the ground in a recent rally in SC: the motor grenaded, busted out the side of the block and oil spewed on the hot turbo, and away she went.