[Healeys] Negative ground SU fuel pump question

Bob Spidell bspidell at comcast.net
Mon May 10 20:44:44 MDT 2021


Until a couple years ago I was putting 6-8K miles on my BJ8 every year, 
so I probably had more chances for failures than most.
bs


On 5/10/2021 12:47 PM, Michael Oritt wrote:
> I have a double-header on my 100 that Dave converted to solid state 
> and rebuilt for me--it has performed faultlessly for probably ten 
> years it is indeed interesting that several knowledgeable people have 
> such differing experiences with SU solid state pumps, or for that 
> matter other pieces of equipment, and it is hard to charge off either 
> consistent success or repeated failures to luck of the draw.  In the 
> same vein, notwithstanding the popularity of FACET cubes I have had 
> very little luck with them and on my Weber-carbed race cars I use 
> Carter 4070's which have performed perfectly.
>
> Best--Michael Oritt
>
> On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 1:22 PM Bob Spidell <bspidell at comcast.net 
> <mailto:bspidell at comcast.net>> wrote:
>
>     The late Dave DuBois pursued the same retirement pastime on this
>     side of
>     The Pond. He designed a retrofit using the points to switch a power
>     transistor, with the expectation that relieving the points of most of
>     the current-passing duties would extend their life; he found that
>     doing
>     so caused the points to wear faster, as the current was
>     insufficient to
>     clean the points surfaces. He later designed a solid-state solution
>     using an optical switch; I had him convert a couple pumps for me and
>     although the conversion was very professional--and he bench tested
>     them
>     for 24hrs continuous--I had mixed success with them. My results with
>     SU's SS pumps, either conversions or off-the-shelf has been
>     inconsistent
>     as well. I think Facet avoids this problem by having their pumps run
>     more-or-less continuously. I tried transils and didn't get the
>     expected
>     result; I guess me and SU pumps just don't get along, but like some
>     girlfriends I've had I stick with them anyway.
>
>     Dave also noted, as did I, that the points available at the time were
>     pure crap. They came in unmarked white boxes and appeared to be
>     made out
>     of (shiny) silver--go figure--whereas tungsten is a dull metallic
>     color.
>     Maybe the situation has improved in the last few years, but I haven't
>     bought any for a while.
>
>     Bob
>
>     ps. If the pump is fitted with a capacitor, and the capacitor has '+'
>     and '-' marks it will be polarity-sensitive (hence the marks).
>

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