[ Alto Works ] Japan Dry ABC Powder Fire Extinguisher, Part 2

Now that we have our Japan Dry Chemical PAN-3AG fire extinguisher, how do we keep it in the car safely? It can’t roll around under the seats and can’t be secured with velcro or the like… at least safely. The last thing I need is a 3kg projectile inside the cabin if I get into an accident. Not to mention many race sanctioning bodies, at least in the US, require a securely mounted metal bracket with bolts and nuts.

The most typical mounting option is in the footwell in front of the driver or passenger seats, bolted to the floor or the seat mounts. As mentioned previously <l>, the fire extinguisher needs to be accessible when I am tightly buckled into my seat. I initially liked the idea of a footwell-mounted extinguisher, as it is quick and easy to access, but given that this is a tiny kei car, legroom is already at a premium.

On race cars, mounting to a roll cage, such as on a harness bar, is another common solution. One would only need to reach around and grab the extinguisher. Unfortunately, there is no harness bar and the other bars are far too inconveniently out of reach.

This leaves only the rear passenger footwell to mount an extinguisher and I think it’s still a pretty good location. I can easily reach back around with my left arm, flick open the metal band, and grab it should I need it. Most importantly, the rear seats cannot be currently used with my roll bar, so there will not be any rear passengers.

Mounting it will be another matter entirely. The transmission tunnel is rather slim, so it is not wide enough to accommodate both bolts drilled through. The second bolt will have to be mounted by an extended stainless metal plate.

This is my mockup shot. As you can see, only one bolt can be mounted directly. With the extra bracket, it seems fairly secure. The only issue is I had to ensure that the two bolts clear the rear parking brake wires. Since this is not an AWD car, there is no rear transmission shaft.

A simple two holes drilled through the tunnel, deburred, and painted, the mount is ready to go on. I cut a bit of the carpet to allow the screws and bracket to clear the dampening foam underneath. With some stainless screws and silicon to seal out the water, the fire extinguisher is mounted!

A simple and quick project, one well-worth the addition if the need ever arises!

[ Alto Works ] Japan Dry ABC Powder Fire Extinguisher, Part 1

Safety first… as long as it’s cheap enough. I’ll go into what I mean shortly.

My Alto Works project is a bit of a haphazard mix of used and new parts, put together by a guy who pretty much knows absolutely nothing about cars -- me. So let’s just say there is a fair potential for something catastrophic to occur, whether it be something as simple as a car having drivability issues to maybe, however small the chance is, a fire.

It is overly dramatic for me to say the car will catch fire, but I’m going to use this excuse to add yet one more thing to the car: a fire extinguisher. There is a reason race cars often require a fire extinguisher or a fire-suppression system to not only protect the driver, but keep damage in case of fire to a minimum. With a full race harness and a roll cage, the fire extinguisher will also need to be readily accessible.

As cars have a wide variety of materials, there are many potential sources of fire. The three major categories of fire that we are concerned with in a car are A, B, and C. Class A fires come from paper, plastic, wood, or textiles, as commonly found in automotive interiors. Class B fires are from grease or oil sources. Class C fires are electrical fires. A fire extinguisher installed in a car will need to protect and stop all these potentially dangerous fires.

Doing a bit of research, I discovered an unbelievably wide range of suppressants used in extinguishers, each targeting specific fuel sources. Suffice to say we only really need to know about ABC dry powder and Halotron I (or formerly Halon) extinguishers for our ABC needs.

ABC dry chemical powder extinguishers are cost-effective and effective chemicals that unfortunately can be difficult to clean up and may cause long-term damage to electronics and other metal components. Halotron I, replacing the much less environmentally-friendly Halon, is a “clean-agent,” which means it extinguishes fires without leaving significant clean-up residue. This means it can safely be used on sensitive electronic components without causing corrosion.

I don’t have cheap or easy access to Hal Guard (or similar Halotron gas) extinguishers. While you can buy a typical small HG100 bottle in the states for around $165, in Japan it is much more at 27000￥... or roughly $250 USD. Sorry, I love my little Alto, but that is more than half the price I paid for the actual car.

Unfortunately, while there is potential for mess and damage, it is much better to have something that could save a life than not have an extinguisher at all. It was difficult to decide which brand to buy, but I eventually settled on purchasing an ABC dry chemical extinguisher made by Japan Dry Chemical. The PAN-3AG is a compact size designed for cars and includes a fairly secure metal mount for about 5000￥($47 USD). It is made in Japan by a major company. With the ABC rating, it is good for all typical car fires that may occur in my car.

The installation will come next time!

Fukui Classic Car Meeting 2019 in Fukui City, Fukui

Two friends and I headed up on a nice, clear spring day last year to check out cars near Fukui City. Matsuda-san drove his awesome Chevrolet. So cool and so classic.

We arrived in the late morning to see quite a crowd. I was pretty surprised that there were these many car enthusiasts in Fukui Prefecture. Honestly, day-to-day, I rarely see any decently modified cars. Usually, they have some slightly nice wheels, but that’s about the extent I see typically.

There are lots of JDM older cars like Skylines.

Unfortunately for Matsuda-san hoping to represent other US classic import cars, there were not many other American or European import cars. Personally I was impressed with the range. I have never seen these many cool cars in one spot in Fukui.

Better to just enjoy the pictures…

It might have been called a Mazda Cosmo Show, with about a half-dozen pristine examples…

…along with a dozen Corolla variants.

Are MR2s old enough to be considered a “classic” already? Man, I ‘m getting old…

Okay, this is just ridiculous. NSXs are not classics. But they sure are still gorgeous.

This was perhaps my favorite car of the show… a Daihatsu Mira. While most may think it’s pretty pedestrian, given that it used to be an extremely common car (well, the newer ones still are a dime-a-dozen), this one was bought new by one owner ever since 1986. The car remains in superb condition and he has quite a few photos to prove his travels around the country… He even still has the original window sticker! One has to appreciate the love he has for his car.

The remainder of the parking lot was no less exciting…

There’s an NA Miata under this… cowl.

A few exotics made a showing, like this 458.

As you can tell, I have a bit of an affinity for an old Fairlady Z.

There were plenty of other cars in attendance, but I couldn’t possibly upload them all! Let me know if a car catches your eye, I’ll upload more if anyone requests.

Now that it’s spring soon, I’m looking forward to this years’ event! I hope to see you there!

Nasu Classic Car Museum in Nasu, Tochigi

I took a summer road trip to Hokkaido last year and I passed through the Tohoku (North Eastern) Area of Japan on my way back to Fukui. As you probably already know, Japan really loves cars, given especially many cars around the world are designed and/or manufactured here in this rather tiny country. So it’s no surprise that there are also quite a few cool car museums all over.

Here is the one I went to most recently, the Nasu Classic Car Museum located in Nasu District, Tochigi Prefecture.

At 1000¥, the entry ticket price is a bit expensive, but for the beautiful quality collection of classic foreign cars, it was well worth the price of entry for me.

Many of these cars are exceedingly rare anywhere in the world and even more so in Japan, as most of these were not imported in any large quantity.

I’ll admit I don’t know much about classic cars, so please enjoy my pictures.

There were also a few cars you could sit in.

They even have a genuine Mach Five from the 2008 Speed Racer movie.

While this small collection may not be worth a separate, long trip to see, I highly recommend stopping by the museum if you happen to be remotely nearby.

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

[ Alto Works ] Front Chin Lip Spoiler, Part 2 (Front Bumper Modification, Part 3B)

After one coat of black paint to at least hide the white FRP backing, I set out to refinish the lip. Unfortunately, FRP is a material that requires a bit of care if you want good results and, most importantly, to be safe.

(This is one of the few times I have ever worked on FRP, so I don’t know much about what I’m doing. Please forgive my process if it is not up to par and feel free to comment below.)

Fiber-Reinforced Plastic, especially found on aftermarket automobile parts, is a plastic compound mixed with glass fibers to increase rigidity and durability. It is arguably lighter and stiffer structurally than than ABS parts, but the stiffness of FRP often results in cracks when a strong impact to the plastic is applied. The finished results are also very rough, requiring a lot of labor-intensive work for the end user or installer since the finish is so crude. But since these parts are so much cheaper and easier to make, most aftermarket parts are made of this material.

Worse yet, the biggest issue working with fiberglass is safety. Since glass fibers are so light, thin, and nearly microscopic, they often can be breathed in and cause irritation of the lungs. Even the slightest bit of loose fiberglass on the skin can cause irritation that lasts for days. Working with FRP necessitates proper breathing apparatus, eye protection, and skin protection.

A few years ago, I installed a carbon fiber Ralliart lip onto my Evo which required some drilling and modification to fit properly. Thankfully, I was used to working with the minimum protection of eyewear and some light gloves, but at that time I was woefully unaware of the caution necessary with working on fibrous materials. This resulted in my arms having a nice itchy, stinging feeling for a few days afterwards. Hopefully I didn’t breathe in too much of the crap.

For this spoiler, I will not need to do significant work or modifications other than some light sanding and hole drilling for mounting, but I do have all the necessary protection. I picked up this 3M P100 Particulate Mask, fully-sealed AOSafety goggles, and 3M full suit awhile ago for use on exactly these type of projects. I first used the mask and goggles on my hood vent cuts, though I have yet to use the full suit.

For surface finishing, I was recommended this Soft99 Fine Filler off Amazon for 1432￥ ($13 USD). It comes with epoxy hardener to cure the putty to touch in about half an hour when mixed properly. It mixes easily and went on pretty smooth, like a creamy peanut butter spread. This made working with it much easier than I had expected.

Once the lip had plenty of time to cure (and the fact I didn’t have time til a week later to continue), I could start to sand down the whole lip.

Even though I don’t need it absolutely perfect, I did my best to make sure it would look good if anyone were to inspect it fairly closely. The putty was extremely easy to sand down and even the yellow color made it easy to see where I needed to continue to refinish.

Once it came time to get to mounting, I had a few decisions to make regarding where exactly to mount the lip. While I would like the flat backing to be flush up against the lower front bumper, there was a few issues. First of all, it would actually end up raising the forward angle of the lip a bit based on the taper. In addition, while you can’t actually see it, the rear backside of the bumper only has some areas where a bolt could potentially mount. Lastly, I wanted the lip to be as low as possible, since the oil cooler I installed a while back is actually lower by a few centimeters than the bumper. This means if I were to hit a concrete block, for example, it would scrape the lip first rather than the cooler.

I decided to use 7 M6 button head screws, spaced evenly along the backing of the lip. I think this actually looks pretty good. Note one screw has not been installed because drilling it could potentially damage one of the air conditioner hoses so it will wait until the bumper comes off during final install

I am seriously getting annoyed at all these rainy weekends. Weekend after weekend have almost all been rainy, leading up to Hagibis, Typhoon Number 19, hitting Japan on a three-day weekend in mid-October. Can I even get the lip painted before the winter sets in?

Finally, the drier fall has set in Japan and I found some good timing to put on the lip, along with a set of LED H4 bulbs to replace the older HIDs I had in it.

I wish I had more time to perfect the finish of the paint, but with the poor, colder weather of late, I thought this would be good enough for this season. Nonetheless, it still looks great from a few feet away!

The lip is small and subtle, but definitely adds a lot of character to the front of the car, making it look a bit more aggressive and somehow wider. I am actually quite happy with the placement of the lip and how it looks on the car.

I will admit that if I were to do it all over again, however, I would definitely put on a lip that is much wider and longer. Maybe that could be another project for the future!