Sorry to hear it Randy glad you got it quick.

 

I'm picturing you in a fireman suite right now.

Someone needs to let Normy know you are alright.

Seriously though, glag you and your car are alright, man.

 

I'm glad you are okay Randy. I hope you get your car back on the road soon.

 

Randy,

Glad you put out the fire before it caused too much damage. I have
been told that the gauge on the fuel rail can be dangerous, and I guess
you proved it. I do have a couple of halon fire suppression systems in
my ORR car, one for inside the passenger compartment and one for the
engine compartment, but that's overkill for a street car.





I bought a couple of these to keep in my GTS



Suppose to be good for gas and oil fires and leave no mess to clean up afterwards.
http://nitrostrike.com/products/minifoamer.aspx

 

Randy - glad you got to it quickly and apologies for minor thread diversion.

George, be careful with the halon system in the cabin. A couple of years ago there was a case at Lake Gairdner (Australian version of Bonneville) where Rod Hadfield had to deploy the halon fire suppression system in engine bay & cabin. After firing the halon he passed out. It took a while to get him out of the car and it was touch and go whether he would make it. Fortunately he was revived and ended up ok. The sanctioning body (DLRA) has since changed the rules to require a non halon system the cabin.

Cheers, Charles

 

Charles,

Yep, Halon is dangerous. That's why it's important to get out as soon as
possible. If you can't, then bust out the windows. I keep one of those spring
loaded spike window shattering devices in the car, just in case. Also with
two systems, one for inside the cabin, and the other for the engine bay,
I can localize the exposure.

It's also why I'm investigating the NitroStrike stuff, seems like a natural for
in-car suppression systems.

 

Holy Guacamole! I'm glad you didn't set the gas station on fire. It sounds like you reacted quickly and correctly.

I hope you can get all the powder washed off as soon as possible.

 

Hi George,
I figured you would be aware of the issues with halon but thought better safe than sorry. From memory Rod had to fire the system while he was still going quite fast on the salt....pretty much a horror story, especially as Lake Gairdner is quite literally in the middle of nowhere.
Cheers, Charles

 

With regard to a hammer to smash the window, I have smashed a 928 window in order to gain entry to the car. It was not easy (that glass is strong!). I wouldn't want to be reliant on breaking glass to get out of the car - a terrifying thought.

Joel

 

I've spent more than 2 minutes in a room where Halon deployed, maybe that explains some things. System dumped at the same time an alarm sounded so we weren't sure it went off, and we went back to a diagnostic check list, but when we started talking our voices had dropped an octave or so and we scooted out of the room.

The old trade show demo for Halon was a phone booth. Guy gets in, lights a cigarette, starts the Halon sales pitch, then they dump the Halon and his cigarette goes out and lighter won't light.

If a system was oversized it could displace all the oxygen, and that is of course very dangerous, but no different from CO2, and Halon doesn't need anything like the amount of CO2 to suppress a fire.

OTOH high speed run could have a car taped up and sealed much more so than normal, and you can't exactly stop very quickly either. Lot of other nasty things in the air with a fire too.

 

Randy sorry to hear this, and you know you have my simpathy. Lucky you were near a large exstinguisher to get it put out. Tis why I carry two of them in my cars. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Another thing to think about - deploying halon into the engine compartment (maybe automatically) while the car is still moving is pretty pointless - it will all end up somewhere else.

Even when stopped w/ engine running - the cooling fans will displace quite a lot of it rather quickly

When turning the engine off the fan after-running can still displace quite a lot of it rather quickly

Alan

 

****... there goes the 928 mobile bar.

Glad it wasn't any worse. That chemical agent is just plain nasty, isn't it. Had the dis-pleasure of cleaning that crap off of Murphy's cars at 4AM after a long night of drinking. He now keeps a CO2 in the garage.

 

I was once following a friend in his 85 in a spirited drive through twisty mountain roads. All of a sudden I thought his engine had literally exploded, because a massive white cloud came from his entire car ... turns out he had an extinguisher in the footwell somewhere that had jarred itself into emptying itself completely. His interior took a long while to clean out. Helpful in a fire, but nasty stuff. I suspect that Randy's biggest job will be the interior.

 

Glad you and your ride (for the most part) appear to be OK. Cars can be replaced. You cannot. You are VERY lucky that this happened where it did. Off to buy an extinguisher for my cars...