As racers began to switch fuel types for more power, they soon found out that these fuels are more volatile and highly oxygenated. While these traits are beneficial for more power and work very well in a high performance application, the harmful chemicals have side effects that create problems with some components in the fuel system.
One of the areas where racers were noticing problems was in the fuel regulator, the diaphragms to control fuel pressure are made with silicone and the highly oxygenated fuels will destroy them. The solution was to use a Teflon diaphragm in place of the silicon so that they wouldn’t have these problems.
Jim Craig from Weldon Racing Pumps said,”We have Teflon in the same style bypass regulator that everybody uses, so that the fuel doesn’t affect the diaphragm and eat them up in two to three weeks. That was a crucial problem with the silicon style diaphragms, they just weren’t lasting more than a couple of race weekends.”
Craig first started noticing that more racers were using these fuels after talking with them, and knew he needed a solution. He said, “It works well because I had more racers using these highly oxygenated fuels and they needed a regulator that wasn’t going to be harmed.”
The regulators are virtually the same, they just have a Teflon diaphragm now over the older silicone style, which is still good for the other fuels that were being used. Craig says that the Teflon is so thin that it won’t replace the older diaphragm — the newer units are grooved for the diaphragm and an O-ring is used to seal the regulator.
You can see these regulators and all other Weldon Racing Pumps fuel system components at their website.
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