I was cruising down the road today at about 55 mph on my way home from my brothers house which is in Elkton Md and I live in Parkville which is about a 45 mile drive. Temp was about 85 and all the sudden the car died. Fuel pump got real quiet and I could not hardly hear it with the key on eng off. This has happened before when the fuel boiled in the carb so I wait about 3 or 4 minutes and then the pump starts making its normal noise so I hold it on the floor and the car starts and runs fine. I drive about 5 miles with the electric fan off so it wont throw more heat at the carb as it was running good at 185 on just the normal eng mechanical stock type fan. I go to 7-11 and fill the cool can with ice and drove the next 30 some miles home with no problems.
It fooled me as the eng was only running about 185 but yet the carb got hot enough to boil the cheap pump fuel. Its the first time this year I have had any trouble. I built this to run on pump so I could pull in any gas station and get gas. I have a few of these gel ice packs so my plan is to keep a few of them in my small cooler on ice in my trunk so if I get stuck on a hot day I will just open my trunk and put one of the ice packs in my cool can. It seem to be like going back to the 70's with a cool can but it helps keep the fuel cooler which is important if you run this cheap pump gas with to much ethanal in it. As long as I keep the fuel cool with the cool can it is fine. Cant think of much else to do other then ice in the cool can as I already have a heat shield and I use a 1" phenolic spacer. The worst thing is the eng is not running to hot when this happenes as it just seems to be holding alot of heat under the hood making the carb bowls to hot to touch. I really dont want to have a cool can on my car as I stopped using them in the 70's at the race track but the cool can seems to be one fix that does work if you run pump gas. I hate to pay over $10. dollars a gallon just to run race fuel in my street car. Oh and I had some kid in a Suburo WRX try to race me from a 60 mph roll cruising down the road. I only had room for a quick burst just to show him that by just nailing the gas and leaving the car in high gear the old muscle will pull away from his turbo car. Course we never went over about 75 mph as I am sure that turbo car has a bit more top end then I do with my gearing. Ron

In my many years of driving and living in Pa I got BAD gas 3 times in my life. Once was at my local Amico gas dealer and 2 times it happened between the Bay Bridge and Ocean City in Md. Do they check their gas very often in that state?

i doubt you can blame it on the ethanol. ethanol has a boilingpoint of 173F and its not all that much Ethanol in the pumpfuel. add to this that alot of the EPA regulations that we all love to hate has forced the oilindustry to create modified fuels with raised boilingpoints compared to the old days..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

Hey Ron,

What about running a 160 stat and/or wrapping your headers to keep temps down?

It sucks, they keep changing things more and more because their research shows stuff to be backwards compatible, but it isn't.

Its definetly the fuel boiling as it has happened to a number of cars around here and I saw the fuel boiling out the vents. When it happens you have to hold the pedal on the floor to start it just like starting a flooded vehicle. Never had this problem until last year. Its the pump gas fuel they have around here. It would be cool if I can figure out how to keep the under hood temps down. I really did not want to rap my headers but it may help as suggested. Ron

Isolate the fuel lines as much as possible from engine heat and insulate where you can't. Isolate the carb with a spacer and shield.
After that , you have to look at what you are running.
Pump gas is really bad these days......I think we are getting the EPA / cost cutting measures combo platter from the pump these days.
Maybe a system with a return ?

Have you tried or do you use a wood/phenolic carb spacer? I've always ran a 1/2" wood laminate spacer and it does help alot.

I actually use a phenolic spacer but I have heard the wooden one could be better. So I might try and go to a wooden one. I have also thought about going with a return line. I mean I have run Holley pumps and deadhead systems since 1974 and never had a problem. But we had much better pump gas until now also. I was thinking about taking my filler neck out and drilling a hole in it and then braze a nipple on it so I can make a return line setup as I have the regulator for a return line. I use the stock gas tank and thats why I was thinking of removing my filler neck so I could wash it down with water and then drill and braze it for a return line nipple as I surely wont drill on the tank as I would have to remove the stock tank to put a return line nipple in it. It should work fine if I put it in the filler neck down low where the filler neck goes into the stock tank. But until then I will be putting ice packs and ice cubes in the cool can on hot days. Its funny as I have been out on hotter more humid days this year with no trouble but I had not gone 40 some miles as most were cruises within 10 miles. Ron

a return style fuel system is the only sure fire way to cure it. I have tried everything many years ago and what spawned my obsession with tunnel rams

This is the heat shield and phenolic spacer I use right now. Ron

At 55 mph you are moving enough fuel so it shouldnt
be boiling... you might want to look at the fuel line
routing and see if its in contact with the block or
any other heat source.. when I worked on the fuel
boiling issue on production Chrysler cars, we would
see it boil out the bowls and dump raw fuel down the
intake while in a hot soak(engine off) and as soon as
the engine fire up and the driver would try a hard
acceleration it would stumble and/or die...and after
about 20 to 30 seconds it got enough fuel passing into
the bowls to cool them off so it wouldnt boil it..
then it drove fine... so driving at 55 it shouldnt
have been the boiling issue BUT you could have a pump
issue... do you run a return line with a vapor separator
near the carb

It doesn't take much airflow to help out with vapor lock. My radiator sits back from the core support about 1" because its a crappy universal deal. I sealed that gap up last year before drag week and it helped a small cooling problem I had but caused a vapor lock. By opening just the top gap up it allowed enough air to the carb to keep the vapor lock out and fix my highway cooling problem. Its funny how much air moves through that small gap, my air filter had bugs and crap on the front after drag week last year, my car doesn't have a scoop.

Sometimes I wonder if those carb heat sheilds hurt more than they help...

i bet there is another problem somewhere. what ignition are you running?

Ron, I had the same problem. What fixed mine was rerouting the fuel line to the passengers fender well and coming in through a bulkhead fitting about 6" back from the radiator support.

The reason I say its fuel boiling again is it did the same thing last summer. When I got the air cleaner off the fuel was boiling out the bowl vents. The only way the eng would run was to keep the pedal on the floor since it was flooding and pouring gas in the eng. My buddies 65 Coronet did the same thing last year at Carlisle and I had to convince his son to keep the gas pedal at least halfway down to keep it running until we could get more air flowing. Mine did this today as I had to keep the pedal on the floor to keep it running at first as it was pouring the gas out the bowl vents. Once I got it moving and put ice in the cool can it was fine and the car never ran over 185 today. Not being smart but this is not my first time around the block with this and vapor lock problems. What happened was as I was cruising when I was on a downhill off the gas is when the eng died. I know enough to know when an eng is flooded as it was. You can see in this older pic of my old eng how the fuel line comes up on the fenderwell as its nowhere near the eng and I ran it that way to help avoid vapor lock which is also why I will only run an electric pump. But it was not vapor lock as it had plenty of gas. Way to much gas in fact. Its not an ignigntion problem as when it first happened last year it had plenty of spark as it did today. Its not the biggest worry in the world as I could have worse problems. But the next time I go out on a nice cruise I will put an ice pack in the cool can and see how it goes. I have heard the pump fuel will be getting even worse for our carburated muscle cars. Ron

Is that ur fuel line running down the inner fender back by the fire wall?. If it is, i'd say that is line is getting cooked by the header. I moved mine from that area & never had anymore problems.