Project Z

Originally Posted by phunk

The fuel level you were at was well into the fuel starvation risk area. Basically, once the gauge no longer reads topped off, you are at risk, and the risk increases the lower you go.

you often will not realize that you are in the middle of fuel starvation while in the right hand turn, and then you will encounter it as soon as you go to give it gas. it feels as if the gas peddle is not connected to anything because the trans is in gear, the engine is spinning, but it is not responding to giving it gas. at this point, the engine is only spinning because you are in gear, if you took it out of gear, the engine will die unless the fuel pump happens to grab some fuel as youre letting off.

when you make the hard or long right, the fuel sloshes over to the drivers side of the tank. If the turn was aggressive enough, you can get nearly all the fuel to go over there. so even though you have straightened out after the turn... most the fuel is over on the other side of the tank, and when you go to give it gas there is such a little amount that the pump cannot meet the engines needs.

it takes the system time to recover the fuel from over there. there is a little siphon that is powered by a venturi effect in the fuel leaving the fuel pressure regulator. it is constantly, and slowly, transferring fuel from the driver side to the passenger side where the pump resides. since it is required that the fuel pressure regulator be allowing fuel to bypass, if you are even low on fuel pressure, the siphon will die. this means you can actually transfer all the fuel to the other side, have the engine die, and there will be nothing you can do (short of adding more fuel into the tank) to get the fuel back to the passenger side. the car can actually be stuck on the side of the road until you bring it gas.