A hydraulic system is a closed loop system - and quite often you will find strainers on the suction side and filters on the feed side - look at enough heavy equipment and you will see that you can design without compromising for flow. - A fuel system is not a closed loop system. Running a fuel filter before the pump inlet saves the pump from the junk that gets introduced in the fuel and the ever decomposing foam from cell - general rule of the inlet size should be larger than the output - I generally run a 100 micron on the inlet side of the the pump and no filter on the output - one 12AN line with filter in and and 1- 10AN out. Every car made today has a filter of some type in the tank on the suction side as a pre-filter.

I run -8 from the pump to carb and -10 from cell to pump.

The HP of the motor will determine how much fuel you need your system to deliver, more power needs more fuel The needles and seats I.D. as well as the fuel line size and type can be a restrictor in any system

I don't follow what your saying.

What I have found is there are many different components on the race cars, fuel system included, that can limit how fast the car can go if they are not good enough
I had one new Holley 9375HP Dominator carb. that came with a .110 needle and seat in the front and a .120 size in the rear, that motor needed more fuel on the front four cylinders and I couldn't jet the primary up enough to get the plug reading correct until I change that needle and seat to .120 like the back had in it
I hate Murphy

Ahh, ok. I originally plumbed the car based on the 1/2" aluminum hard line I had when I was 25. This year I ripped all that line out and went with the startlite braided line I just stuck with the -8 and -10 I had originally plumbed.