Plumbing for a Dominator
Great info, thanks!
That dominator is probably overkill on that motor, but if it runs and you want to be "period" then go for it. The availability of billet stuff has been relatively recent. As to plumbing, you are probably looking at modern race motors that really need a Dominator. These motors need a lot of fuel. They need a good electric fuel pump supplying more fuel than the motor needs at low speed, so they have a regulator to bleed off the extra fuel through a return line back to tank. At high speed it works well, supplying all the fuel it now needs. I hope I explained that OK.
It may well be. Racecar stories are like fish stories, so I do take the PO's accounts as a level of mythology with a generous pinch of salt. That makes a lot of sense with an oversized pump for a larger motor, then needing a return. Sounds like a return line is likely not necessary, and I don't see one plumbed, so I'll start from there.
Red/blue anodized AN fittings and stainless braided hoses have been around since the '60s, so the stuff is not exactly "modern". You would have seen it on top-end race cars back then. It gradually filtered all the way down to the street machines in the '70s-'80s. So it's totally appropriate for use on your car. A race car of that era will have an electric fuel pump out back, a big filter or two, a regulator, and possibly even a cool can. And, yes some even had a bypass regulator with even more plumbing.
Ah - top fuel you're exactly right! I remember painting those details on a Revell top fuel dragster model as a kid. Makes total sense that would filter down to the track and then to the street.
I'm not trying to be picky about resto details, but I do find that if everything is from the same time window that it 'fits together' in a good way. This car doesn't have historical notoriety, it's just a slice of a certain time. The plan is to gently finish the build as it would have been done at the time, and wind up with a fun, reliable vintage racecar that I can take to the local strip and run passes on test and tune day for nostalgia fun. Not interested in building it up to modern levels, nor preserving the exact form it was in. It was originally built as a streetfighter, an eliminator
lookalike for the builder's smallblock cruiser, built from a stripped body on the way to the crusher. It was not originally intended for the track, but when the owner got busted he pulled the headlights and began to make upgrades to make it track-legal. As such the car will be more streetworthy (lights, putting the dash back together) but also to finish the race details that were never done, like the trunk hinges, etc. Most of the car's races were won on the street, it has little actual track time, so I'll need to make sure it's really up to snuff to pass tech and not be a hazard. I've posted a thread on the car in the resto forum, so I won't go into that here. But that's what I'm aiming for.
