Prices were supposed to be out since mid-Feburary, and now finally here they are:
https://www.holley.com/products/fuel_systems/hydramat/
Long story short, Hydramats of a meaningful size for a production car's gas tank start at $200 
The smallest 8x3" mat is $140.
I got all excited about using this in my mid-engine street/track car (www.midlana.com). My interest was increased since I was redoing the fuel tank when these came out, but after some thought, decided to pass for the following reasons.
It doesn't stop fuel from physically shifting in the tank, if that's a concern for CG reasons:
It isn't stated whether it's ethanol-compliant.
The mat must be restrained so it doesn't abrade. In a steel tank they recommend using magnets, but in a stainless, composite, or plastic tank (or fuel cell), how do you trap it?
To be effective, the mat needs to be fairly large, covering over half of the fuel tank's floor to account for a half-full tank in a 1G turn moving entirely to one end of the tank. This translates into needing to be large, which means expensive.
They don't say whether the mat can be cut. Without a wide size selection, this may make it tough to get sufficient floor coverage.
I ended up baffling the tank to prevent slosh and used several fuel cell trap doors to form a gated sump.
It's a great idea and is very interesting technology (I want to know the physics of what's going on) but they're just too expensive right now - for me.
Those prices seem reasonable to me. How much does a surge tank cost? With a second fuel pump etc, quite a bit more I would wager.
I need to measure, but the 8x3 mat sounds about right for the Lotus Elise tank I'm using in my Midlana. The tank is baffled, but the fuel pick up is on the left side of the tank, which has caused starvation in long sweepers in Elises. As long as the fuel return is plumbed to the same area of the tank as the hydramat it should all but eliminate this issue.
So is it like a giant fuel pump filter sock? Seems like an interesting idea but is it going to replace surge tanks and sumped fuel tanks?
If anything, that's cheaper than I expected.
kb58 wrote: - To be effective, the mat needs to be fairly large, covering over half of the fuel tank's floor to account for a half-full tank in a 1G turn moving entirely to one end of the tank. This translates into needing to be large, which means expensive.
I want to point out one small point (nitpicking, sorry). In a 1G turn, you still have 1G of downward gravity, so the top fuel 'surface' would be at a 45 deg angle, still covering most of the floor of a tank at 1/2 tank. Would depend on the shape of the tank how much of the floor is covered.
Depending on the amount of time you spend in a sustained turn, baffles and trap doors become useless after a certain amount of time in that turn. (They slow the movement of the fuel rather than stop it).
When I saw this was introduced at SEMA I thought it would be great for my 70 Firebird rebuild I've been working on. I've had to keep more gas in it than I'd like to on road tracks. Should be a good band aid till I can install a proper fuel cell & protective cage for it. I've been waiting for pricing and while we all wish everything could be less expensive I'll probably be getting one soon since I'm almost at the point where the tank will go back in.
I'm quite interested in this. My 3rd gen Firebird has an issue whenever its under 1/3 tank. Even 1/2 at times. The popular fix is to use a 4th gen tank, but this requires a lot of work to get the pump and sender to function correctly. The carbon canister is a further challenge.
Driven5 wrote: If anything, that's cheaper than I expected.
It's still cheaper than an engine if you suck air under boost. Also, for some applications, surge tanks aren't a viable option. (I'm pretty sure they are banned from stage rally - can only have one fuel container)
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