mandy928

Hi guys,

Since there's been a few discussions recently on fire suppression/fire extinguishers and stuff... what would you guys think of an automatic fire suppression system? how much would you think it'll cost? $300-400?

JPhillips-998

I am going to be putting such a system in my race car and the cost depends on the number of nozzles and size of tank but $400-$600 should cover it. This is probably overkill for a street car. A handy fire extinguisher should be adequate.

inactiveuser92616

I think automatic is asking for trouble. Now, an integrated full installed MANUALLY triggered fire suppresion, that would be real nice. I am not in the market though... as my car is still stock.

Jakerx

i second the idea of a manually triggered fire supression system.

i'll probably get flamed for saying this but it sounds pretty cool when you say you have one of those

Geo

Yeah, I don't think an automatic system is such a good idea. I just purchased a manual one for my race car.



http://www.firecharger.com/

Dave

I'm wondering, what's the issue with automatic systems? They've been in use for years on boats of all types ( I have a 30 lb Halon 1211 system in my "engine room") and in spite of years on the water, including working in a marian/boat dealership, I've never heard of an accidental discharge or any other problem with these systems. I'd definetly prefer an automatic system in the car since an automatic system doesn't require driver input to activate (read, it goes off even if I'm in no condition to activate it) And the heat activated head is right on the bottle so there's less likely to be a problem with the mechanism in a wreck.

mandy928

I agree with Dave. Be it street car or track car, there could be incidents where fire could break out and nobody is there to put it out! This, I guess, is one of the most important factors that would make me choose an automatic system over a manual one.

I guess for experienced (track) drivers like you and me are probably trained enough to "pull that trigger!" in the event of detection of fire. But have you considered these?

1) By the time you are able to detect a fire, the fire probably had burnt for some time and it would be quite a big fire already.

2) For rear-engine Porsches, fire detection is even more difficult and usually at later stage, especially when you are driving.

3) Your wife/girlfriend or anybody could be driving your car. In the event of a fire, are they trained enough? Are they able to react fast enough under such stressful situations to "pull that trigger"?

4) If children (or any curious persons for that matter) are in your car, they could possibly meddle with the trigger and set off the extinguisher (if they weren't told not to). This false alarm would set you back some $$ to get the tank refilled.

5) Manual fire suppression systems (not talking about hand-held extinguishers!) have nozzles directed at specific spots, usually 2-3? What if the fire breaks out in other spots? Are they effective enough to reach to the source of the fire and put it out in time?

Just to share with you guys, we had a Porsche owner who watched his 911 go into flames:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori.../68154/1/.html

I know of an automatic fire suppression system that didn't use any electronics to "automatically" detect fire. In fact, the setup is quite simple, compared to manual systems.