Performance Racing Industry: What’s New and Cool 2024 Edition

Performance Racing Industry: What’s New and Cool 2024 Edition

2024 was the kind of year that really makes you dislike the fact that the yearly PRI show takes place in December in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was annoyingly cold, and it even snowed… twice! Fortunately, the snow didn’t stick, but I managed to stick around long enough to see all the new and cool things. My suffering is for your benefit, dear reader.

We have made it a habit to make Radium Engineering our first stop at every PRI and, while that actually didn’t happen this year for scheduling reasons, we’ll still tell you about their new stuff first as if I had gotten there on time.

Every year Radium has at least one or two new things that are worth mentioning, and 2024 is no exception. First up is their new saddle tank setup. This is a multi-tank configuration that allows for all kinds of interesting setups, including lowering the center of gravity through creative mounting. The saddle setup is built off of the existing FCST X and involves a lift pump that sends fuel across to the primary. There is also a splitter to allow for both tanks to be filled simultaneously. This is a pretty trick setup, and you can find one in the wild on Ryan Tuerck’s Toyota Celica build.

If you’ve ever left a fuel jug out on a hot day or, worse, in direct sunlight on a hot day, you know that it will swell and bulge as the fuel vaporizes and builds pressure inside. A quick-fill jug also has a dump tube vent on the side that allows air to rush in to make the fuel flow faster. That dump tube can end up barfing out fuel if enough pressure builds in the jug. This little button is a quick pressure release that allows you to vent the pressure in the jug without interfering with the operation of the dry break. Neat!

The new DFPR, or dual fuel pressure regulator, was designed specifically for GDI vehicles. On a GDI car, the mechanical fuel pump causes a tremendous amount of pulsation between the low-pressure regulator and the pump. The DFPR uses the return of the low-pressure regulator to feed a second regulator, which then is what feeds the GDI injector pump. This can completely eliminate the pulsation that would occur after the factory FPR.

If you’re wondering why this is important, oftentimes, you will employ port injection in addition to the factory GDI injection once you run out of flow rate on the GDI Injectors. Splitting the regulated pressure after the OEM regulator to a port system when all those pulsations are present can cause a lot of fueling problems.

This creative and compact system allows you to supply both the original GDI pump as well as your port injection setup, and both of the regulators are independently adjustable.