fuel cell mounting
 

oookay.. any tips on mounting the fuel cell? I've heard a lot of people treat it similar to a stock gas tank and just use thick metal straps (and I'd imagine some padding) all over the place to secure it to the car. That way in a very hard hit, it'll separate from the vehicle and not cause a firey explosion in the back of your vehicle.

My question for you is: Is that preferable? Do you want it to be able to let loose in an extremely hard hit, rather than stay right with the car? Or should I build a hefty metal rollcage type thing to both shield it and keep it with the car?

Finally, can someone show me some pics of their mounting (how they mounted it) or any other people's mountings? I'm mounting an 8-gallon cell in a first gen RX-7, and it's also going to be driven on the street.

Well the whole point of a fuel cell is so that the explosion does not happen in the first place. A fuel cell will have a sack or bladder inside of it so that even if the tank does take a hard hit and crack, you have to puncture the bladder to make the fuel leak out. Where the tank is situated on the car makes that very hard to do, so your pretty safe with it strapped to you car. Secondly, I cannot say for sure, but I am pretty sure that SCCA does not want fuel cells flying around the track like heat seeking treasure chests of doom. In the case of an accident the track workers have enough to worry about with out a minefield if gas tanks strewn about the track. Make sure its strapped on good.

I know how they work and what they are. It's not a rotary molded fuel cell (aka the "scarier than stock" type), it's a metal box with the soft bladder inside. 8 gallon.

I don't have any pics of a mounting, but all the race type mountings I've seen have been boxed in with 1" steel square tubing. I'll see if I can dig up some pics soon.

PaulC

completely boxed in, or just the top lip is boxed in?

They surround the top lip with a 1" collar of steel tubing, then ususally have two or 3 tubes shooting down/under/back up to protect the bottom

PaulC

ah ok.. kinda like this..

http://home.comcast.net/~mdeminico/fuel_cell.jpg

edit: stupid forum won't let it show as just a picture..

no it should have support underneath the cell as well as around the lip. like this or this

ok, that shouldn't be too hard to incorporate

no it is a simple fabrication job using 3/4" to 1" square tubing

:rlaugh: