probably a well hashed subject, but.... so last night when i came back from paris and started the 456 at the airport parking lot (very cold), the 'check engine' light came on. i didnt really know what the problem was. i checked the oil (it needed some of course), but that wasnt it. i turned off the battery in an attempt to re-boot it, and that didnt solve it either. so this morning i started it up and went to the dealer. they checked it out with the diagnostics and found it had misfired during start up last night, and that all was normal now. so they re-booted it and that was it. on my way. good news. but while they were fooling around with the computers, i wandered around the garage to check out the cars as usual. amongst the usual new stuff, there was a 275gtb, a dino, an enzo, and an f40. the f40 was up on the lift with its fuel cells out, so i had a close look. the old cells were atl and had been put in the car by dk engineering in 2001. the car had english plates. the fuel cells looked perfect. of course i could not inspect every inch of them, but from the outside they looked completely fine. the material they are made of looks like beige kevlar, with a fabric embedded in it; and it looks bullet proof. the cage within which the fuel cell resides looks equally tough with the heat shields and reinforced areas protecting the cell from nearly everything. anyway, it occurred to me that the whole fuel cell replacement philosophy might be similar to the cam belt replacement philosophy - ie enforced replacement if its needed or not. what is the REAL experience of people with these ATL cells? do they fail? can they fail? they look like the terminator of fuel cells frankly - impervious to everything and anything.
Napolis will know, he has changed the bladders in his old racers. IIRC there is a point where the interior "sponge' material of the cell goes "bad" and at that point will choke your pump/injectors. It's not the perimeter bladder that fials first, but the inside? Not sure how the modern fuel blends factor into all of that... Joe Sackey??
There is a reason that things have shelve life's as any one who has drunk sour milk comes to learn...
The cells become "porous" after max 10 years. Real risk is leakage and fire. Expensive to replace but cheaper than a burned out car!
