Richard Broadhead
Flag & Com
It happened this weekend and has had an extensive thread on Apexspeed about the 'need'.
When we first went through Jeff's FC preparing it for the track, I was rather surprised to find the cell breather routed UP into the roll bar shroud with NO one way check valve in it.
As I recall as far back as the earyl 60's the fuel tank or cell breather was required to have a check valve in it. Somewhere along the decades of racing, this requirement seems to have been overlooked or 'assumed' to be installed. But we see many, many cars today without this item or vent lines routed in such a way as to expose the driver to fuel spillage in a roll over situation.
It happened this weekend with the FF roll over. NO check valve and fuel flowed out of the breather line puddling under the driver. Fortunately, no source of ignition was present and the E-crew extracted him safely.
I encourage everyone to check for or INSTALL these one way valves in your breather lines. They are a CHEAP safety feature and very worth while. In addition, route your vent lines to take any spillage prior to the ball valve closing away from your cockpit area.
Per the SCCA GCR:
GCR 9.26.3 (9.3.27 second paragraph
blah, blah, blah..... and do not use an unchecked breather opening.
On the cheap side it's a $15 investment
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=899
If your all AN stuff it's $40
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=5568
And if you're in to a high dollar 'fix' it's $123
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=5284
Yes, we went the cheap route and took the hose WAY back away from the cockpit.
When we first went through Jeff's FC preparing it for the track, I was rather surprised to find the cell breather routed UP into the roll bar shroud with NO one way check valve in it.
As I recall as far back as the earyl 60's the fuel tank or cell breather was required to have a check valve in it. Somewhere along the decades of racing, this requirement seems to have been overlooked or 'assumed' to be installed. But we see many, many cars today without this item or vent lines routed in such a way as to expose the driver to fuel spillage in a roll over situation.
It happened this weekend with the FF roll over. NO check valve and fuel flowed out of the breather line puddling under the driver. Fortunately, no source of ignition was present and the E-crew extracted him safely.
I encourage everyone to check for or INSTALL these one way valves in your breather lines. They are a CHEAP safety feature and very worth while. In addition, route your vent lines to take any spillage prior to the ball valve closing away from your cockpit area.
Per the SCCA GCR:
GCR 9.26.3 (9.3.27 second paragraph
blah, blah, blah..... and do not use an unchecked breather opening.
On the cheap side it's a $15 investment
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=899
If your all AN stuff it's $40
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=5568
And if you're in to a high dollar 'fix' it's $123
http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=5284
Yes, we went the cheap route and took the hose WAY back away from the cockpit.
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