Cobra crash at 101 and 46

[1795]

Originally Posted by fordracing65

On a Kirkham the pull switch is on the dash next to the rpm gauge

That is a very good spot for it, and where mine will be on the race car. It is easily accessible to both the driver and anyone outside of the car.

[120mm]

Originally Posted by fordracing65

What brand cutter

Leatherman

Leatherman: Z-Rex Glass Breaker and Multi-Tool - theEMSstore

[Luce]

It's always heartbreaking to read one of these stories.

I hear a lot of talk about having a knife to cut the harness and fire extinguishers to put out a fire, but even more import, how many of you with electric fuel pumps have some automated system that shuts them off in the event of an accident or engine stalling? I can see his holley red pumping 75 gallons an hour onto the flames under the hood.

Megasquirt kills the electric fuel pump 2 seconds after the crank stops. That's my saftey feature.

I spent countless hours trying to have everything possible fail safe like an OEM car, and a toggle switch turning the fuel pump on is suicide. That's what ended my dad's Austin Healey back in the early 70's I was a 5 year old tot in his pajamas with his dad under an overpass watching our car burn to the ground as the fuel pump happily poured all 10 gallons on the exhaust manifold. Luckily, it wasn't an accident rendering us incapacitated. Just a leaky fuel line.

[patrickt]

We don't talk about fuel cutoff switches keeping us from becoming Cobra flambé.

And we don't talk about padding roll bars to prevent caving your skull in during a relatively minor accident.

In fact, we rarely even discuss those pesky accidents at all. For the most part, we just look the other way.

[1795]

Well said, we try to emulate the race car look of the 60's, but those cars had very poor safety features and drivers did not wear much that truly protected them. It was more common then for drivers to be killed or injured than it is today.

However, most of us do not want to have our road cars fitted to racing specs with fully padded roll bars, arm restraints to keep our arms in the car during a rollover, helmet with HANS device and proper fire systems and cutoff switches. They do make an electric fuel pump cutoff switch that works on impact and cuts the electric to the pump if the car is jarred. I will have to look for the link for that. I have one in the trunk of my other race car. Our cars would not look so nice fully outfitted.

For those of you who do use a 5 point or 6 point harness and actually engage the crotch strap, make sure that it is snug to your crotch, no slack. Recently on another racing website someone posted an article about two people driving in a track event who did not have their 6 point restraints properly engaged and when the hit a wall at 60 mph they slid forward a little bit before getting restrained. The crotch strap caught the sides of one guys scrotum and both of his testicals were hanging outside of their protective sack The picture was not pretty and I will not post it here.

[Luce]

I forgot all about the roll bar issue because I have high back seats that protect my rock box. yea, your padded rollbar is atrocious, but the electronics to kill the fuel pump can be hidden. Feel free to dog my ricer boy seat...it's comfy and supportive.

[G-Pete]

For the guys with electric fuel pumps, this switch is a MUST HAVE. Ford inertia switch, it is mechanical and shuts your fuel pump down after an impact - it works very well!! Easy to find, easy to mount.....