More off the cuff wisdom

Project sleeper stang hasn't seen much progress but i will update my readers on some of the things that i got done to it in its previous incarnation. To be honest I actually had it running for a summer with a 350 chevy between its fenders and I was using a homebuilt engine mount adapter plate that worked good to hold the motor. This is how I learned that the stock k-member wouldn't leave enough room for headers and had to go. My 350 was somewhat of a mismatched combo and coupled with the 2 speed tranny it wouldn't get out of its own way. After driving it for a summer I had an opportunity to sell the engine and now its gone. Some of the other mods I did to the car were to sump the fuel tank and install a new windshield. I'd like to talk about the fuel tank sump modification. In a drag car, under hard acceleration all the fuel sloshes to the back of the tank. if the fuel level is allready low then the fuel pickup can be exposed and the pump will suck air. This can be cured by allways keeping your tank at least half full when you race but there is still another problem. On a factory built car that came with a small engine such as the 2.3L that was in the sleeper stang the fuel lines and pickup tube are very small. At one point near a connection at the fuel filter the line is necked down to 1/8 of an inch. Also a car that had fuel injection will have a fuel pump in the tank that must be removed when switching to a carb. This is why I like to sump a fuel tank. By placing my fuel outlets at the rear bottom of the tank i can make them as big as I want and always have the fuel slosh toward the fuel lines instead of away from them. You don't want to run an engine lean during a race, especially if its on nitrous. There is alot of science that must be considered when trying to properly build a fuel system and I will leave that for you to research on your own but I want to talk about safety here. On one of my first fuel tank sump projects I knew I needed to flush all the gas and fumes out of the tank before i welded on it. I removed the tank from the car and pulled out the sending unit. I stuck a garden hose into it and let the water fill up and overflow the tank. What I didn't notice was that the sending unit was in a slightly recessed part of the tank and there was an air pocket that never got flushed out by the water. I then dumped out the water, drew out my cut with a sharpie and made my cut with the plasma. BOOM. The tank jumped about 2 feet into the air and knocked me backward. I was lucky, the pocket that contained the fumes was very small but I easily could have been killed if there were a little more fumes in there. Lesson learned. Now whenever I sump a fuel tank I take it to a company that chemically cleans out the tank to remove all traces of explosive fumes from it. I also make sure they test it with flame while I am a long distance away. This usually costs $50 but i now think thats cheap compared to trying to save a buck but possibly get severly injured or killed. Learn from my mistake, don't take stupid risks.
take care.