We were planning to use our S13’s OEM fuel tank with a Radium Engineering pump hanger to supply fuel to our SR20DET but that plan ended when we opened up our tanks cover. To our dismay, we found that our car’s fuel tank had rotted out during its long storage. This is odd since the car has always been stored indoors during the time it was not being used. Unfortunately, Nissan has long discontinued stocking new factory tanks. If our tank rotted under good storage conditions, we did not feel like going through a long junkyard search to find another tank. We also didn’t particularly like the position of the stock tank. Unlike most Nissans that have the tank in the middle of the car where it is well protected, the S13 has the tank located front to rear with the back of the tank located pretty close to the rear of the car. It is not as bad as the explosive Ford Pinto but it is not great. So for safety reasons and our want to run E85 which tends to cause things to rust and deteriorate worse than gasoline, we opted to bite the bullet and opt for a Radium Engineering RA fuel cell which would solve many problems at once and greatly improve safety.
The Radium Engineering RA series fuel cell consists of a foam-filled bladder contained in an aluminum housing. In the event of a crash, where the fuel cell is hit, the housing can get smashed but the tough bladder resists punctures, tears, and rupturing. In the worst case possible if the bladder ruptures, the foam will still control the fuel and prevent explosions. The foam also works to control fuel slosh under normal running. Since we will be running E85 most of the time, we chose a larger 14-gallon cell to make up for E85’s higher fuel consumption. Radium’s fuel cells are E85 and exotic fuel-rated so you don’t need to worry about the bladder and foam getting eaten up by alcohol-based fuels. Radium also makes a lightweight carbon fiber lid for the fuel cell but we didn’t need to be that baller!
Radium’s fuel cell is also SFI and FIA-certified if you are racing in an organization that requires it.
We got our fuel cell with the optional weld-in stainless steel cage to make it easier to install the cell into our S13. Now you can just weld the cage into the chassis instead of having to make a support structure for the cell, then welding it into the chassis.
2 comments
The fuel tank being rotted out is a worry in the back of my mind as I am getting prepared to get back into my S13 after it has been sitting for 15years. After doing some intial searching, I now have a hankering to swap out the rear floor and subframe to swap over to an S14 setup to have the mid-mounted poly tank. I’ve been planning for all these years to keep the car a street car, but upgrade and adapt it to modern standards/crash safety (I work in the collision industry).
If you were going to do all of that I would just get the additional safety of a fuel cell.