Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Michael Davis, 19-Aug-2004, 03:49pm
"(Exactly HOW air tight is YOUR transmission tunnel btw!)"
erm, not very!
"I'm thinking of one nozzle behind me, one in each footwell... one (two?) in the engine compartment ?"
Mine has three nozzles in the footwells and three more in the engine bay.
erm, not very!
"I'm thinking of one nozzle behind me, one in each footwell... one (two?) in the engine compartment ?"
Mine has three nozzles in the footwells and three more in the engine bay.
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Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Styles, 19-Aug-2004, 04:34pm
Mik,...
where did yours come from ?-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Michael Davis, 20-Aug-2004, 10:09am
Demon Tweaks
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Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Andy Vowell, 20-Aug-2004, 02:44pm
How about one for the fuel tank too. Why two in the footwell? I thought the spread from one nozzle would do the job.
Are you going to still carry a handheld?
If you do go to Demon Tweeks ask them if there are any places avaliable on their "Pole Position" sponsorship scheme. Free to join and gets you 10% off everything. Plus if you ever get a picture of you car showing DT stickers in some motoring mags or on TV then you may win some money vouchers. Worth a try
Cheers -
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Andy Vowell, 20-Aug-2004, 02:45pm
How about one for the fuel tank/pump too. Why two in the footwell? I thought the spread from one nozzle would do the job.
Are you going to still carry a handheld?
If you do go to Demon Tweeks ask them if there are any places avaliable on their "Pole Position" sponsorship scheme. Free to join and gets you 10% off everything. Plus if you ever get a picture of you car showing DT stickers in some motoring mags or on TV then you may win some money vouchers. Worth a try
Cheers-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Michael Davis, 20-Aug-2004, 04:12pm
I installed my nozzles according to the instructions that came with the kit, I did wonder about one for the fuel tank but I figured that OMP possibly knew better than me. Besides which there weren't enough T pieces and stuff to run a pipe to the boot as well as the other places if I remember correctly.-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Styles, 23-Aug-2004, 09:40am
For the fuel tank...
I'm more thinking of one just running to level with my seat and pointing at the rear bulkhead so that it'd cover the area behind me.
I did wonder about the passenger footwell too....
so I'm probably thinking....
2 under the bonnet...
1 in each footwell...
1 to run down and point behind my seat
The only thing I'm thinking is, if I have an under bonnet fire... and I (or the marshals) press the button...
I get soaked for no apparent reason don't I ?
I suppose I could put up with a little foam.. to save things under the bonnet though,..
cheers
Dave.
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Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Andy Vowell, 16-May-2006, 05:05pm
This is resurrecting a really old thread but hey, I'm a bit behind the curve this year.
The posts above talk of systems with more than 2 nozzles, as I'm such a tight-arse I only have a 2 nozzle system so where do you think they should go? I'm thinking of both in the engine compartment one each side, mainly because the motor is not protected by a fireproof suit, and you can get new legs on the national health
What do you reckon?
Andy
(Current Garage Hermit)-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Thompson, 16-May-2006, 05:13pm
Andy,
The 2 nozzle units come with the recommendation that one goes to the engine bay (carb side) and one to the passenger compartment. Not sure if the MSA have anything to say about it but I reckon the melting point of flesh is lower than the melting point of metal so I endorse the one in one out principle.-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Nigel Gibbins, 16-May-2006, 07:14pm
When i did mine i seem to remember it had to be one at the carbs and one into the drivers footwell.-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Sibert, 17-May-2006, 06:49pm
I don&8217;t know the first thing about racing, but I know a little about firefighting media and fixed installations.
You all sound as if you are talking about small stored pressure foam (or possible dry powder) extinguishers. If they have been designed to discharge through 2 nozzles, then splitting the system through 3 or 4 nozzles instead could
reduce the pressure at each nozzle so that the
spray pattern is ineffective, and 
discharge the bulk of the contents of the
extinguisher into a part of the car which isn&8217;t on fire, thus wasting it, and not actually extinguishing the
fire (you have to consider the same issue when you design a sprinkler system to protect a shopping complex).
Some modern petrol has additives in it which makes it a pig to put out. The petrol companies won&8217;t say what they put in (trade secret), so selecting the right extinguishing media can be bit hit and miss. Some modern brake fluid is more flammable than petrol.
For what it&8217;s worth, the petrol tank itself is only likely to catch fire if it ruptures, and you ain&8217;t going to put that out with a little fire extinguisher &194;&8211; you wear Nomex to get yourselves out of that situation. A nozzle pointing at the petrol tank would only be of any value in putting out a small fire outside the tank which was threatening it, and I would have thought that there are few sources of ignition round the petrol tank, so the value of a nozzle pointing that way would be limited. I imagine that the fire extinguisher is aimed at trying to stop fires in their earliest stages in the engine bay, and to deal with any burning vapour or spray that might find its way into the footwell - that is probably all it is capable of doing with any degree of certainty.
You may well have seen these systems operating often enough to know what they are capable of doing, if so, I appologise for sticking my oar in. Otherwise, I should check with manufacturers or perform a live fire discharge test before you move away from any recommended installation instructions.
Best of luck,
Dave Sibert
(2.5ltr Convertible GT6 and Senior Fire Engineer, Fire Protection Association)-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Andy Vowell, 17-May-2006, 09:19pm
Thanks all, Sysyem is designed for 2 nozzle optimun and now fully fitted with one under the bonnet and the other under the dash.
Apologies for asking here and not reading the rules, I've only just sent off my license application so not got a rule book yet.
Cheers
Andy-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Styles, 18-May-2006, 05:51pm
Sounds good to me...
I was advised to go for a larger bottle to run 3 nozzles..
Also.. I was told to think carefully about when you split..
presuming each split will do a 50/50 of extinguishant
so I have a split going forward to the engine.. and the pipe then splits into two to point at me and behind me..
in *theory* It will be 50% at the engine.. 50% in the car split between me and the rear bulkhead..
thats not quite true in practice I reckon.. but it will be towards that.
I know a caterham racer.. and they just have one pointing at their feet.. one at the engine..
I think the instructions said the nozzle does a 1m spread within 1 metre..
btw.. Andy.. apparently be careful where you point that one in the footwell.. if it points any higher than your legs and it has to be set off while you are in the car.. you will be able to see nowt for a week.
I'm told its best to make sure its pointing only at your legs.
I was also told that its to pull once you are out of the car unless you are actually on fire yourself..
(and even then.. get out if you can.. "drop and roll")
get out.. THEN pull it from outside.. don't sit there while your bonnet is smoking and pull it !
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Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Jonathan Binnington, 17-May-2006, 09:54pm
dave, i would hazard a guess that one of the difficult to extinguish addatives in petrol these days is ethanol
having see film of methanol fires in US Cart racing, that'll be my guess, of course water is great for straight alchohol fires, but when mixed with petroleum that is immiscible with water, bring in the foam
j-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Sibert, 17-May-2006, 11:51pm
This is getting a bit off the subject, but when I first joined the fire service in 1982 we never used anything except high pressure water spray to put out most fuel fires in cars. Even a running petrol fire from a ruptured tank didn&8217;t stand a chance against 26 bars from a high pressure branch set to spray.
Then when unleaded petrol came in, we found on more than a few occasions fuel fires which were next to impossible to put out with water. It was looked into, but as I said, the petrol companies weren&8217;t talking.
Dry powder was by far the best thing for these difficult small petrol fires, because it was always spread out on the ground, and all you have to do is knock down the flames. My opinion is that foam is only better when you have large quantities of fuel which get hot enough to re-ignite. In those cases you have to smother the surface, and dry powder doesn&8217;t do that.
To get back to firefighting without a 12 tonne fire engine &8230;. if you have a dry powder fire extinguisher in your car, you should shake it up on a regular basis because it &8220;cakes&194;&8221; into a solid lump as it is shaken down by constant vibration, and then when you go to use it, nothing comes out. Also, if it does come out it makes a hell of a mess. I guess these could be reasons why your race cars use foam extinguishers rather than dry powder.
Anyway, this area is supposed to be about motorsport, not a firefighting tools and techniques, so I think I'd better leave it at that before I get into trouble.
Let&8217;s hope we never need to put all this to the test,
Regards,
Dave
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Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Nigel Gibbins, 18-May-2006, 07:27am
We have to use foam extinguishers as I expect using a dry powder one inside the car (enclosed space) is likely to asphysiate the driver in short order....?
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Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : David Sibert, 18-May-2006, 08:19pm
I wasn't going to continue with this conversation, but for everyones peace of mind, I should point out that the content of a dry powder fire extinguisher is mainly bicarbonate of soda. So the word is, it wouldn't asphyxiate you, but you would spend more time in the toilet doing it through the eye of a needle than you would have done in the burns unit if you hadn't used it in the first place!!-
Plumbed in Fire Extinguisher.
Posted By : Nigel Gibbins, 19-May-2006, 07:24am
Lol!
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