Hey everyone, I'm thinking of getting together a full car fire extinguisher kit and I'm wondering how many people would be interested in it. This kit will be nice and professional.

I know someone that designes fire extinguishers for a living. I'm talking with him about designing a full setup for the RX7. The way it would work is the bottle is mounted and there is piping that runs all over the car with nozzles placed in strategic locations. Here is the cool part...... it would have sensors that would sense the fire and automatically spray that area. That way you dont waste your bottle spraying all over the car when the fire is only in the front. Also, since its automatic the fire doesnt have to get large before you notice then pull over, get a bottle out (if you have one) , ect ect ect. The second its noticed by the sensor it would be put out even with you driving down the road. Its automatic so you dont have to do anything. Its going to be at least a 5 pound bottle or maybe a little bigger like 6-7 pound and of course it would be the shiney chrome.

How many people would be interested. How many people would be willing to pay for something like this? I'm definatly no where near pricing it yet but I'm thinking in the $500-$600 range, might would end up being less or maybe more. But assuming that price range how many would be interested?

If you dont think its needed I challenge you to do a search on the forum for fire or extinguisher and look how many threads there are where peoples cars caught fire. THEN tell me its not needed. Especially when insurance wont be covering the thousands and thousands of mods on your car. I mean, to put it in perspective we are talking similar price range as a nice ss cat back exhaust

Stephen

 

im confused, are you talkign about liek the new chrysler ME 4-12 design that sprays the cockpit? I find that useless, all 7 fires start in the bay.

 

I dunno if you can say ALL, but he's got a point...

 

Yes.
No.

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I think just a nice large, good looking extinguisher with the squeeze type handle and a good solid mount for it would be great.

Can you even ship fire extinguishers?

 

When they are empty, yes. Unless it's local to you and it's delievered legally by a designated truck.

 

what would actually trip the sensor is it a heat sensor or actually have to be burned? as someone said most fires will start in the engine bay and if you haven't noticed the engine bay gets and stays pretty warm. would suck having your engine sprayed without a fire just because the sensor picked up the normal heat.

 

It is probably a mercury vial like in normal fire extinguishing system, with a burst rate of a temp decently higher then the engine compartment.

 

mm.. a lot of race car using fire extinguishers system I got one set on my race car . and they are not small !!
they are size of car battery plus the piping and switch so it would be big, and do you know you cant just using any fire extinguisher. most of fire extinguisher will destroy car plastic peace and rubber part

 

its called halon and there are already kits made for race/cars.

 

You can't spray halon in the cockpit; unless you want your car to live but not yourself.

R.K.

 

^What he said.

As I understand it, halon basically attacks the oxygen feeding the fire, not the fire itself. Thats why it is so widely used in large server rooms and such, the dry system spares the components.

Could be way off, but thats a rough version of how it was explained to me.

 

Halon CAN be sprayed in the cockpit,...but it is definetly NOT good for your lungs. It will suffocate you if youstay in the cloud. That is why FIA has banned it a few years ago, and switched to the new liquid agent. ( don't recall the official name) AFFF is the official abreviated term and the mix contains water as well. a % AFFF and the rest water. The link below has info on it.

there are already kits out there that are universal in nature. Meaning it comes with the bottle mounting hardware, nozzles dpending on the system you get determines the # of nozzles. And the piping needed to route all over the car. The only difference i see that you are offereing would be the remote sensor and dispersion method instead of the complete spray. Which i thinkis a cool idea.

Teh other systems out there are around 500-600+ for the whole deal. These are the new style extinquisher that does not kill your lungs like halon and can be refilled for around 70 bucks instead of 300 like halon and such.

www.firecharger.com was where i had seen al kit before that i am intrested in. it had options for 2 nozzles in the enginebay, 2 in the passenger area by the seat floors and 2 at the fuel cell area.

this is a good idea if you can offer it at the price you thought above. and if you use the new agent that is easy to clean up and cheap to refill. I will look up that new agent again now and post it up.
Dave

 

It would be full car meaning it would cover the engine bay, driver area, rear area. Baically it could cover anywhere that is needed. Like mentioned there are already universal systems, the difference is this one would be layed out by a professional (nozzle layout, chemical type, sensor placement, ect) and it would be spacific to your car. The lines would be the correct length, ect. It should be about the same price as a universal but it would be spacific for your car.

To be honest I dont have all the spacifics, I'm just trying to gauge interest before wasting the guys time.

As for it being halon, I dont think you can buy halon anymore. They do have different variations/mixtures of halon that you can get that are safe but the old type that was potentially dangerous I dont think is for sale anymore. In addition if I was unconcious or couldnt get out of the car and my "cockpit" area was on fire (would have to be for that nozzle to go off) then I'd rather be depleated of O2 for 20 seconds than burn to death.

As for shipping...I dont think it would be a problem. You can buy them full from online stores and catalogs like Summitt, Jegs, rice boy stores, ect ect ect so they must be shipping them.

Stephen

 

There are four types of fires:

1. Paper/trash/wood and other more-or-less organic solids. "Ordinary combustibles."
2. Inflammable liquids such as gasoline or paint thinner.
3. Electrical fires, with electricity still flowing to the burning equipment.
4. Burning reactive metals, such as sodium, magnesium, titanium, and so forth. Such metals not only burn at high temperatures but can chemically extract oxygen from water and even carbon dioxide. Pyrophoric materials such as organoboron, organolithium and organomagnesium (Grignard) compounds are also in Class D because they react violently with water and carbon dioxide.

Halon extinguishers normally contain bromochlorodifluoromethane, a liquid that turns into a very heavy gas when sprayed into a fire (much heavier than CO2). This gas not only displaces oxygen from around the fire, but chemically reacts in a way that shuts down combustion (it decomposes into chlorine and bromine radicals, which scavenge hydrogen radicals essential for keeping combustion going). Halon extinguishers, like CO2 extinguishers, are especially suitable for Type C fires and delicate equipment, but because they chemically shut down combustion they are also good for Type A fires. They are being phased out because of the damage chlorofluorocarbons do to the ozone layer.

If you spray Halon into the air, it disappears almost as soon as it is sprayed, but is highly effective in closed areas -- hence, it's main use aboard aircrafts.

 

While the production of Halon ceased on January 1, 1994 under the Clean Air Act, it is still legal to purchase and use recycled Halon and Halon fire extinguishers. In fact, the FAA requires all commercial aircraft to exclusively use halon. It's still easily available at http://www.h3r.com/

 

What is your source?
Do you an internet reference?

As far as I know, halon has low tocixity(especially Halon 1301).

 

OK, I found a very useful and reliable info regarding safety and toxicty of Halon:

http://erd.dli.state.mt.us/safetyhea...ures/halon.pdf

Reading this material will dispel any misconceptions regarding Halon fire extinguishers.


I, for one, do not have any misgivings about installing a Halon(1301) fire extinguisher inside my car.