Fire Suppression System - Asset Protection

This is the mounting hole for the second nozzle location. Here you can see the grommet in the hole which holds the tube snugly. This is very important, especially in dirt racing where the constant bumping and banging can damage the tube if the grommet was not there.

This nozzle is located directly in front of the driver, slightly to the left side of the car. It is aimed at the left side of the motor and will cover from carb to headers, to power steering pump, and everything on the left side of the motor. You can see the power steering tank to the left of the tube and nozzle. This nozzle will also blanket the entire area in front of me in the event of a fire. Coupled with the other nozzle, I have protection on almost three sides from just two nozzles. If we wanted, a third nozzle could be added by running a T-junction into an extra 5 feet of 1/4-inch aluminum tube and mounting the nozzle directly in front of the fuel tank.

A close-up of the nozzle shows the outlet hole that creates a 180 degree fan pattern when the bottle is discharged. This creates maximum coverage, a very good thing when you're talking about a fire-suppression system.

Now comes the fun part-filling the tank. Make sure you have plenty of space and that the bottle is sitting upright on a solid surface.

After filling the bottle with purified water completely to the top we proceeded to pour out 8 ounces into a measuring cup.

If we had a 10-pound system, we would have removed more water, but since ours is a 5-pound system, we removed exactly 8 ounces.

The AFFF concentrate is then poured into the bottle. As you can see I have on safety gloves. Firecharger recommends gloves and eye protection because the AFFF concentrate can cause permanent eye damage. Once the bottle is filled to the top we attached the discharge hose and head assembly onto the bottle. Since there is an O-ring seal on the head assembly, Firecharger recommends torqueing the head to between 15 and 30 pounds, although additional torque may be required to get the plumbing to line up.

With the bottle in place, we tighten down the brackets.

Here's a close-up of the mounted bottle in the car.

Firecharger includes a nice aluminum cover for the CO2 cartridge, which snaps into place and protects the cartridge and actuator.

The bottle is in the car and the lines have been run.

The Firecharger is a pull system and comes with a traditional red T-handle with white lettering. But we added more after a quick trip to Office Depot for some red press-on labels. Now, the T-handle's location is really obvious to safety crews. This is particularly important in the event of a wreck where the driver is unconscious. With the help of my father, Robert, I mounted the system in the car so I already know where everything is and what lever to pull in the event of a fire. But if I was knocked out it would be up to the safety crews to figure out where the on-board extinguisher was located-now that it's clearly marked, they can.