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Was tooling along in my roadster yesterday and suddenly the smell of "something combustible" (or what I thought might be) hit my nose and I started to get worried that my carbureted old car mighta sprung a fuel leak and the car was going to burn to the ground.
Fortunately, it wasn't my car, it was something in the surrounding air. (Passing a row of restaurants, figured it might be someone starting up a gas powered something or other.)Anyways, today I ordered this:
Heh heh. But yeah, realized I've not carried an extinguisher in-car for many decades. Figured now might be the time with a 51 year old car with a glass fuel filter, carbs, and very old wiring! Better safe than sorry, ya?
Here's the thing, I did a lot of research on extinguishers and found that "state-of-the-art" is still the same as it was... dry chemical. Ugh. That shid, as I recall, did "as much" damage to an engine as a fire would, seemingly. Powder into the intakes, and getting inside scoring cylinder walls, that type of thing.
So I investigated "clean kill fire suppression medium" (like Halon). And instead of just buying a $30 bottle of BC dry chem, I opted for the one pictured (at several times the cost of dry chem but if I need it and it works without residual damage, well, initial buy-in is moot!). It uses "Halotron-1", the less environmentally damaging offspring of the banned Halon product from back in the day. This unit, an H3R Performance Halguard 100R, is small but rated as the #1 extinguisher on the market (by somebody, so who really knows?) But the key features (claimed) of it are that it is clean (no residue, no aftereffects), no damage to electronics/electrical systems like dry chem, and does the job of quashing burning liquids/electrical (B|C rating) quickly and efficiently.
Question I have is: What are you carrying in your cars? Anyone have the unfortunate luck of actually having to use this type of Halotron-1-based extinguisher? Just curious to see if it really works or did I fall for rigorous marketing hype?
I know about FE-36, Novec, and foam based in-car systems but do not believe these medium are available in handheld extinguishers. Or at least not as readily as Halotron.
Mic ... I do run around with one...in reality, two extinguisher (well, one is a suppression). The extinguisher is not fancily mounted...just behind the seat in a box with other stuff ... I could reach it in a 3 seconds if I had to.
The second is a formal fire sense system with nozzles in the cab and in the engine bay. Essentially trunk mounted and piped to the cab and to the engine bay as dictated by their directions. I usually keep in pinned closed to keep it disarmed to prevent anything from setting it off...well - the smart guy I am I had it armed for my dyno session last fall. Luckily I didnt need it but I forgot to pin it disarmed after the session ... well, I got the feeling to take a corner fast on the way home and a box of spare parts/tools in the trunk took advantage of centripetal force and pushed the tank's squeeze handle and opened the system and it pissed foam in the engine bay and cab for about 3 seconds...lesson learned
Mic- in my 30 years of racing, I've only had a Halon system go off ONCE. Unfortunately, it was at the Mid-Ohio Runoffs when a new crew member accidently triggered it. Currently, my Touring class Z uses an AFFF fire system, which is less toxic than Halon and easier to replace. Halon has gotten hard to find and you certainly don't want to breathe it if deployed. So the water based systems have gained widespread acceptance in motorsports.
Guess I’ll just mount the Halotron handheld bottle to the rollbar downtube and hope I never have to actually use it to determine how well it works. 😐
I’ve seen a few foam based handhelds but they are a bit too big to carry practically except in the trunk and if I have to fumble with my keys to get it out, the front half would already be toast!
We have them in the tow truck, ive used it in a few occasions, once to put out a small brush fire, it worked great and knocked it down and a few min later the fire dept came and soaked the area in water.
The other was on an old Corolla pretty much burning like a boss in the middle of the road. It did pretty much nothing in that situation, but in the extinguishers defence the hood was closed and I was pretty late to the party.
I would say for an older vehicle your better safe than sorry, if you can get the fire out quickly that will be the difference between replacing some components or bringing out the marshmallows.
Fire Extinguishers?
