Fire extinguishers

[sgrant]

Charles - presumably you had to plumb one in, for the racing. Where did you put the tank? In the pass footwell? And do you have a recommendation for a reasonably priced setup?

Thanks,

stephen

[erictharg]

I've just used the basic Lifeline club fire marshall 2.25 kg setup. It sits where the passenger seat usually would be, but you could fit it in the footwell and just about still get a passenger in too. One nozzle plumbed to my footwell, the other to the LHS of the engine. It's cheap enough - not much over £100 from memory. I can pull out the bottle and piping if I need to re-fit the passenger seat in 30 mins or so. For road use I'd be inclined to just go for a similar hand held rather than plumbed in. You could site it on the tunnel between you, or in the passenger footwell.

[sgrant]

Agreed, but the thing that worries me about a handheld is the amount of time it would take to get the bonnet open to get the spray in there....

[erictharg]

Sounds valid. But, how do you usually know you have a fire? You won't know it's under the bonnet until it's too late, I suspect (speaking as someone who has only thus far experienced a dashbroard fire in a LandRover). So, if racing don't even hesitate. Had a bad crash and can smell fire: Hit the button. Otherwise, you need a flexible solution, because you don't know what will cause the problem. Hence he hand held recommendation. A plumbed in extinguisher is useless if your electrics decide to combust, for example. The most common source of fires in "kit" cars. I'd venture.

[sgrant]

Yes, that's fair, although I suspect that if you restricted the survey only to those kit cars that had the inlet manifold above a hot exhaust manifold, rather than on the other side of the engine, you might get a different result

[erictharg]

Maybe so. And experience tends to tinge one's views. Ask Mark Blunt who had a car of his go up in smoke and now has a mega plumbed to everywhere electrically triggered extinguisher system. So, maybe the best combination is a plumbed in extinguisher with one nozzle in the engine bay near the carb, and one behind the dash, along with an easy (whilst strapped in) to reach battery cut off switch? In fact, if you went for the short fat bottle I reckon you could locate the extinguisher in the space behinnd the RH front wheel, and in front of the fuel tank.

[sgrant]

That's a superb location, not least because I could easily point one of the nozzles straight at the fuel tank - i'm going to measure up and look into that. Could you do me a favour and - next time you happen to be in the garage - measure up your bottle for me, so I can see if it fits in there? My Caterham has nozzles pointing at a) the fuel manifold, b) the fuel tank, c) my feet, and I figure that's not a bad combination at all. I could still have a hand-held in the passenger floorpan, but a plumbed-in one definately adds an additional element of safety because, as you say, as soon as you smell something bad you can hit the button and hopefully save the grp and the car.

stephen

[erictharg]

The one I have is about 48 cm long o/all by 10 cm dia which I think will be too long. But they do a shorter, fatter version in the catalogue that may be better. You would also need to make a couple of shaped brackets to fit the curve of the ally "sill" that you could mount the bottle brackets to.

[sgrant]

I'm going to go for this, so I'll let you know how I get on....