How many of you run fuses in your cars?

[JLambeth87]

Rewiring. Heard some people use them, others don't. What is the general consensus on this?

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[JLambeth87]

Ended up wiring it with fuses. Front wiring is now finished (minus sensor wires from engine). Tomorrow I'll get the rest of the car back together and hopefully have my first start on Saturday!

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[FVRacer21]

Blade fuses better than the old style glass - probably when people stopped fusing circuits.

Put a few hundred amps across a 16 gauge wire and you are not going to finish the race anyway.....

ChrisZ

[10rmotor]

I don't use fuses. I use aircraft breakers which are meant to be used as on/off switches. They're availalble in many different amp ratings, and have screw terminals. They're not cheap, around 30 bucks each but work well. I get them at aircraft spruce.

[Raceworks]

I've run either fuses or breaker-switches. I usually do fuses in purpose built cars because the breaker-switches I used in production cars were a bit bulky for most formula car cockpits. I use in-line fuse holders & gang-zip-tie them together. Separate circuits for ignition (20A), fuel pump (20A), rain light (5A), and the data system / dash display (3A).

A third option are some self-resetting breakers that are used in place of ATO/ATC style blade fuses. I haven't used them in race cars but they're standard equipment in my Freighliner & they seem to work well.

In my opinion one is extremely foolish to run a race car without some kind of circuit protection.

[T Brzezicki]

I don't use fuses. I use aircraft breakers which are meant to be used as on/off switches. They're availalble in many different amp ratings, and have screw terminals. They're not cheap, around 30 bucks each but work well. I get them at aircraft spruce.

No breaker, aircraft or otherwise; will react as fast in milliseconds as a fuse.

[RussMcB]

I knew a guy who had to change a fuse when his car died very early in a race. He was able to loosen his belts and grab another one, and very luckily, that worked and he was able to reach the leader and pass him for the win.

This was a World Challenge car (or one of those production based racing series).

What made me remember that was I noticed in the picture above you'd probably need to remove bodywork panels to reach the fuses. Maybe better to mount them reachable from the cockpit, if possible. I was able to do that easily in my Spec Miata (a few years back).

[BLS]

"No breaker, aircraft or otherwise; will react as fast in milliseconds as a fuse."

There are all kinds of fuses, fast blow, slow blow, etc. You don't always want a fast blowing fuse.

[Jamesbe]

I knew a guy who had to change a fuse when his car died very early in a race. He was able to loosen his belts and grab another one, and very luckily, that worked and he was able to reach the leader and pass him for the win.

This was a World Challenge car (or one of those production based racing series).

What made me remember that was I noticed in the picture above you'd probably need to remove bodywork panels to reach the fuses. Maybe better to mount them reachable from the cockpit, if possible. I was able to do that easily in my Spec Miata (a few years back).

I have video which I can't seem to find. Start of race entering T4 at mosport car died, ended up stopped mid track before 5, safety was on their way. As I'm sitting there contemplating what could be wrong, I pull the ignition fuse and it's blown. We had a spare fuse in the block labeled eject as a joke. Grabbed it, swapped fuse, car fired up. And i took off just as safety pulled up behind me.

Saved from disaster. Never did figure out why that fuse blew, never did again.

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[T Brzezicki]

"No breaker, aircraft or otherwise; will react as fast in milliseconds as a fuse."

There are all kinds of fuses, fast blow, slow blow, etc. You don't always want a fast blowing fuse.

And as I said, no breaker will react as fast as a fuse

[10rmotor]

No breaker, aircraft or otherwise; will react as fast in milliseconds as a fuse.

Wires don't melt in milliseconds. And if the speed of a breaker shutting down were a problem, the FAA wouldn't allow them in airplanes. There is way more wiring in an airplane that would use these breakers than probably any race car (except maybe a modern F1). And the car won't fall out of the sky for a few milliseconds of breaker response time.

[Buc01]

Yes blade type. (the small mini ones)

Aaron