Plastic Fuel Tanks?

[Erich Stahler]

I am building a TVR 3000m racer and wondered what the regulations are for non FIA historic race series regarding using plastic fuel tanks, had a look at the HSCC 70's Road Sports technical regs, as a good guide as they are the most stringent race series, but and all it says is:

"The fuel tank must be either the original production specification, or a safety tank. Any fuel tank must comply with FIA Art. 5.5, must not exceed the originally specified capacity, and must be in the original location or in the rear of the car."

I have yet to find the FIA document containing article 5.5 but was wondering what the consensus of opinion was, they can be sourced from the US for quite reasonable money.

Cheers.

[Drumroll]

To be honest I am amazed you are even thinking about getting a plastic tank for a comp. car. Get a FIA tank fitted.

[terenceb]

Drumroll said:

To be honest I am amazed you are even thinking about getting a plastic tank for a comp. car. Get a FIA tank fitted.

Quite agree.Also, America has different approach to standards than Europe.
Would have thought including shipping, there would be not much difference in getting an alloy tank made/of the shelf?

[Oilchange]

surely an alloy tank can as easily be punctured as a plastic one?

some of the plastic tanks are fairly durable but of course racing ones filled with foam etc are the way to go.

Edited by Oilchange on Sunday 14th September 08:39

[Madrabbit]

Whatever you fit it will have to comply with the series regs. If you're not using the original tank it will have to be F.I.A approved.
Scrutineers may want to see that the tank complies before you get near the track so why not fit an F.I.A approved one now and save yourself any headaches later.

[teamHOLDENracing]

Some plastic fuel tanks are FIA approved - albeit they need to sit within an ali container in the same way that the bladder style ones do.

[Graham]

Madrabbit said:

Whatever you fit it will have to comply with the series regs. If you're not using the original tank it will have to be F.I.A approved.
Scrutineers may want to see that the tank complies before you get near the track so why not fit an F.I.A approved one now and save yourself any headaches later.

Just checked the blue book sections J and K and cant find any section that specifies the construction of fuel tanks.. just that they need to be separated from driver by a bulkhead etc.
you can check here ( http://msauk.org/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?a...

so unless your regs say anything specific cant see a problem with a plastic tank.


The blue book does refer to fia cells but only to say they must be in date. Very few cars I see have fia cells . my Tuscan has an FIA cell as I wanted a bigger tank and that came up at the right money, but the taz has an after market alloy tank.

Edited by Graham on Monday 15th September 17:19