I would give careful consideration to capacity and the number of nozzles. As probably one of the few forum members here who have actually been in an in car fire (about 4 weeks ago while racing) and used one of these fire bombs I’d be careful with placement.
I had an 11lb bomb AFFF that had two nozzles. One nozzle was in the engine compartment directed at the carbs and the other nozzle came down the tranny tunnel and pointed at my foot well. When the bomb went off the cockpit nozzle shot stuff at the foot well, where it was not needed, and came out with such force and turbidity my vision was obscured in no time flat. Not only that, the stuff is a horrible throat and eye irritant which made it sort of hard to breathe. I’m a hardy “breather” meaning I don’t have allergies, asthma, or anything like that – I’d imagine someone with these problems would have real difficulty with how much of this stuff actually gets pumped into the cockpit.
The other nozzle in the engine bay got defeated somewhat. I had a carb fire that burned undetected for probably about 30 seconds. The lines that these companies give you for running throughout the car are aluminum hard lines with a plastic coating. In the 30 seconds the fire burned it melted the plastic coating off the lines and did something to the ally tube – what ended up happening was that the AFFF came out all along the length of the tube and only a small bit through the nozzle. When I wrote the company about this they immediately requested the line for analysis and it has been sent to them. We suspect that a small piece of plastic or ally got trapped in the nozzle during assembly and the pressure/heat split the line once it became sealed. Could be other things too, I am awaiting their answer.
So, while the engine nozzle did put the fire out, mostly, it could have done a lot better with more accurate placement of the nozzle. Don’t put it anywhere the flames from a likely source might reach it – these things spray plenty and can be located far away from the fire they are to put out. The other thing I’d be concerned about is number of outlets.
If the bomb weighs X lbs with Y pressure drop per nozzle, then hooking up pressure drops (nozzles) to the bomb will obviously decrease the amount of time it can effectively spray. I’d check with the company, but Dave your plan with 2 for fuel tanks and 3 for the engine might be too much, but I don’t know. I’d prefer to keep them to a minimum or use two systems wired in parallel as we’ve done on our Enduro car. After that car fire, on my first competition race I might add, I am quite paranoid about fires and build accordingly!!!!
In the end I got out of my fire okay but the corner workers at the station I drove to while the car was on fire had a lot to do with how it ended up. 40s are hard to get out of, almost as hard as a race car with all the restraints, harnesses, nets etc, and you need something to kill fire in a 40. I'm younger than a lot of folks on here and can get out of one pretty quick, but fire is fast too. On the other hand, having a fire in a car really makes you move!!!!!!
Ron
