Re: HC in AC

[Joe Elliott <jee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For what it's worth, I've had a huge leak in my GTV6 with HC refrigerant, 
and there was no huge fire.  To have a fire you need an ignition source. 
The way that these gases disperse, I think you'd pretty much have to have 
an open flame to start a fire.  There's data available about the 
concentration of refrigerant:air and the temperatures you'd need, and I 
think the research indicates that these circumstances pretty much won't 
happen under the hood of a car.  To answer the original (Greg's?) question, 
the offical reason they're illegal (Mark pointed out the real reason) is 
because (unlike fuel, etc, systems) the AC system breaches the firewall, so 
in the event of a major collision in which underhood fire is unavoidable, 
flammable refrigerant would be likely to spread the fire into the passenger 
compartment more rapidly.

-Joe

--On Thursday, June 5, 2003 1:21 PM +0000 alfa-digest 
<owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided> wrote:


> Automobile AC systems are not so designed. Even though the amount of fuel
> in a HC based cooling system is small, the underhood area of a car is no
> place for the stuff. A minor leak in the system (And they all leak
> eventually) will become a blowtorch. Do you want that under the hood?
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