Alternate types of AFFF in fire systems

I have a AFFF fire system in an older race car that I bought last year and I found that the stuff is very corrosive.

In my case the car was in a museum for 4 years and that's a part of the problem.

This an aluminum dual compartment tank and the stuff eventually corroded through the the discs in the valves and started dribbling out of the knozzles very slowly. It stripped the wrinkle paint off of my valve covers, destroyed the plating on a number of nuts/bolts/screws and ate a hole through the interior leather in one spot. The insides of the tank had corrosion in them as well. This system probably should have been emptied and recharged every year and that's certainly a part of the problem.

I also have a hand held halon on the car as well as another handheld AFFF which I did get recharged. I'm trying to cover all the situations.

I want to be able to handle a small situation with out the mess of foam (hence the halon) but as someone prefering my own butt over a racecar I got to have the foam.

Now that I fixed the main fire system I was wondering if there was something better than "standard AFFF"?

I did find 2 interesting products that sound very similar but of course both companies claim the other's sucks.

Cold Fire - http://www.firefreeze.com/site/page1.cfm

Fireade2000 - http://www.fireadesource.com/

These both claim to eliminate the problems of shelf life, corrosion and toxicity. You can spray it directly on the driver with no ill effects. They are also claiming to do a much better job at putting the fire out very quicly and keeping it out. They both reference use at tracks by safety crews but the references may be financially tainted.

My fabricator, a long time hot rod builder and drag racer, uses cold fire.

Any knowledge about either of these?

Thanks Bob

 

In my situation it's A Sparco system that came with their ECOLIFE AFFF. The system was made in Italy by Siries and Sparco slapped their name on it. Sparco has moved on to another manufacturer. I believe the OMP system was also built by Siries as the valves look identical and they reference ECOLIFE as well.

It's interesting to me that you're the first person I've found that uses the Fireade2000.

From my investigations it would seem that Cold Fire and Fireade2000 are both very similar and there may be others.
What made your decision for you?

Your fire system may have a better valve that's resistant to the corrosion of the original AFFF. In my case the car sat a long time and then I started using it, a familiar and old story to many of you I'm sure.

The guys at Classic Coach in NJ have confirmed problems with the corrosion and the aluminum tanks on the OMP system.

I only do club events and so I'm not going to be subjected to as rigorous an inspection as an actual race but how do the various sanctioning bodies handle the firesystem inspection?

The sticker on my system is very outdated but the system will be up snuff this year. I'm filling it myself via a local distributor that handles Cold Fire as the Fireade is not local and I'd have to buy 5 gallons of the stuff. Two quarts should last me for a long time. It appears to me that this is fairly simple to do yourself very reasonably. Am I missing something here?

How would this work if I was going to race, and I'm not, I'm just curious. Does the "official" refiller put a sticker on it?

Bob S.

 

Thanks for the input.

In my situation I've got new valves and I can certainly put a set of external guages on the system to see if it holds pressure. There are guages on each tank as well.

The "flop" tubes brings up a question. I've seen some of the newer systems that use an internal bladder filled with the AFFF so that more of the fluid is evacuated and I guess the idea is that the system functions properly no matter what the orientation of car is when it stops. I suspect that the flop tubes aren't going to do as good a job as the bladder. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Frankly, it's the rest of the system that stays in the car that I'm more concerned about. The wiring(which I can check), the tubing and the knozzles. That's harder to check than an easy to remove tank and valve. It's not like you do a trial run with plain water very easily to see the coverage and verify all of the components operation.

Bob S.

 

Any details on that system?
What do you mean by "remote from the bomb?

Bob S.

 

I'm not worried about the wiring as it's easy to check even before every event.

I think I am going to make a simply manual valve, fill the system with water, cover things with tarps and let it rip just to see what it does.

I don't know what to say about depending on the explosive charge to pierce the disc in the valve. One does hope it's not a dud. Mechanical has the edge there as long as the external linkage doesn't become out of adjustment and rescue workers are unable to activate the system for you.

I had the ignition cut-out become out of adjustment and I wasn't aware of it. So I guess it's constant check, check , check like everything else on a race car. Hard to check those explosive caps thou.

I've got one knozzle aimed at the driver's feet and three in the engine compartment which is in the front. The engine seems adequately covered. There's a seperate tank for the driver.

There's nothing on the fuel tank in the rear.

I'm not racing and don't want to get into that whole discussion about how much safety is enough. There's no answer to that one that everyone one will buy...

Probably need to add one on the fuel cell as soon as I can.

I have read that the spray should be at the drivers feet but if you had enough capacity where else should it go besides the fuel cell and the feet?

Bob S.