If there is one thing that...
If there is one thing that all race car drivers fear it's fire. But a good fire-suppression system can help you avoid an inferno like this. Despite the severity of the fire, this driver walked away thanks to a quick-acting safety crew. Courtesy Lake Erie Speedway
The rule book at our local racetrack reads: "All cars MUST have an approved fire extinguisher securely mounted within reach of the driver." I never really thought about it much, but that's kind of vague don't you think? I mean, what do they mean by "approved" and exactly who does the "approving?" The truth is many rulebooks at tracks around the country are pretty vague when it comes to fire extinguishers. So, once again when it comes to safety it's up to us, the drivers, to do all we can to protect our ass-ets.
While the old fire extinguisher I had in Project DLM conformed to rules written in the rulebook, we wanted to go to the next level and install a fire-suppression system that would provide the maximum protection for a reasonable cost. We purposely steered clear of the NASCAR Sprint Cup-level systems since we don't have their budgets and opted for the Firecharger two-nozzle system from Smiley's Racing Products. Smiley's sells this system for $299. I thought the coolest thing about it was the fact that the design allows it to be recharged in the field by someone with basic mechanical skills and tools, which covers just about every last one of us oval track racers. So you could have an issue in hot laps, discharge it, pull back into the pits, recharge it and still make the heat race.
Installing this system is easier and takes far less time if you have two people working on it. So I enlisted my dad to give me a hand. Truth is, I really don't think I'd want to try to install one of these by myself and you'll see why shortly. At a couple of points in the installation you really need four hands to get the job done. Enough talk, let's get to it. This is a five-pound system and basically comes with everything you need to get it put into place.
The Firecharger Fire Supression...
The Firecharger Fire Supression System from Smiley's comes with everything you see here for just $299. That's a small price to pay for the safety and peace of mind of having a two-nozzle system. With the addition of a T connector and another nozzle, you could make this a three-nozzle system, but we chose to keep it a deuce.
Finding a space to mount the...
Finding a space to mount the five-pound bottle turned out to be a bigger challenge than we thought. The tight cockpit of Project DLM meant we had to get creative. Well, we found what turned out to be the perfect spot, a hidden compartment where the master cylinders are housed, just in front of the driver's cockpit. There was just enough room there.
With the gauge panel removed,...
With the gauge panel removed, you can see where we'll mount the bottle. The kit comes with enough lines and cable to make remote mounting of the bottle a snap. Just keep in mind that you'll want it easily accessible if you need to allow the tech officials to check it or if you ever need to recharge it.
According to Firecharger,...
According to Firecharger, for maximum efficiency the bottle must be mounted horizontally with the two brackets a minimum of 6 inches apart. With the car sitting on the ground at ride height, a triangle helped us ensure that the bottle would sit perfectly horizontal.
Marking the width of the bottle...
Marking the width of the bottle helped us to be sure that we had plenty of clearance around the whole system.
With everything marked out,...
With everything marked out, we then attached the bottle brackets to the aluminum panel using 5/16-inch Grade 5 bolts with washers and Nylok nuts, which is what Firecharger recommends. Now is a good time to figure out where you want to mount the T-handle. It must be within easy reach of both the driver and safety crew. As you'll see later on in the story, we chose to mount it to the left of the steering wheel near the A-pillar.
On the side of the bottle...
On the side of the bottle you can see a black round knob, that's the actuator which rotates when you pull the T-handle to discharge the system. The long nut sitting in front is the pull cable end which will get screwed into the tall side of the actuator bracket.
The cable on this system will...
The cable on this system will remind you of a brake cable on a bicycle. The black sheath literally gets screwed into the pull cable end, then the cable wire gets threaded through the black sheath.
You must install the bottle...
You must install the bottle into the brackets for the next step, which is to cut the cable wire to the proper length. Here's where you need that extra set of hands I was talking about before.