Cool suit

Cool Suit Instructions

First, watch the video[1] (always a good start) it makes things vastly more obvious..

The read the following assembly process

1. Shirt Assembly

    	A. See “silicone spot image” use the silicone tube to draw this image as shown on shirts to be used. Please use shirts that are 100% cotton, or nomex/fireproof ONLY. Please DO NOT USE polymer blend shirts as they are flammable.
   	B. Apply silicone design to shirts as shown and allow to dry. 
  	C. Cut holes in silicone openings and run silicone tubing through said holes. The silicone is used to keep the tubing from fraying the shirt as well as to hold the tubing in place.
   	D. Feed the silicone tubing through the shirt once the holes are cut as shown in the diagram. Leave a tail of at least 4 feet of tubing for each shirt. This will need to feed out your firesuit and connect to the cooling lines.

E. Get out the small white plastic tubing adapters. Slide the thin end into the blue tubing and tighten with the small zip tie. F. Get out the milky polyethylene tubing and cut 4” from each end (2 pieces). Push one end onto the plastic tubing adapter and zip tie. G. slide on the tubing clamp on each tube, then insert the male quick connect in each end.

  	Use Tips: ALWAYS wear another Nomex layer underneath the cool suit shirt layer. It prevents chafing and improves fire retardance. Wear the shirt tight, it will compress the tubing to your skin and provide added cooling. Avoid running the cooling lines below the straps of the seat belts and from under your neck or HANs device. This could pinch the tubing and reduce the flow of cold water.

2. Cooler Assembly A. Measure and locate the two holes to cut into the cooler

               Hole locations: 

Hole diameter (use hole saw to cut) 1.5” (38mm) Left Hole, from left side 2.25” (58mm)

                       Left Hole, Down from top of white inner edge 2.0” (50mm)

RightHole, from right side 2.5” (64mm)

                       Right Hole, Down from top of white inner edge 6.5” (165mm)  

Tips: please use a hole saw. Barring that, clean knife cuts or fast rotating paddle bits have worked in a pinch. Remember you will use silicone to adhere the bulkhead parts in place do don’t freak out if your hole isn’t perfect. Please adhere to these locations, the bulkheads need to be inboard enough not to hit the inner edge of the cooler, and high enough not to be impeded by the mounting bracket. B.Take Bulkheads and black gasket, coat behind and in front of black gasket (white gasket is optional on front of cooler) as well as lightly coat exposed foam inside of holes with silicone material. Push into place and fasten outer “ bulkhead nut” fitting tightly by hand. Don’t crush the inner wall, just put it on nice and tight. Wear a rubber glove when applying, wipe away excess (a popsicle stick can substitute here for a nice smooth edge as well). Allow to dry (3 hours). This should give you time to build the rest of the cooler (you’ll have it done sooner than that, don’t worry.)

3. Mount Layout (A-E) & Assembly (F-) A.locate where you will place the cooler in your race car. Be sure to leave room to plumb them, think of where the lines will protrude out of the front and where your wiring will go. Laying all your writing and tubing in position is a great way to know where it will all fit. Point the lines away from any walls. Please start inside the truck area or behind a wall where if for some awful reason it broke free it would not contact the driver. B. Test the positioning by practicing refilling a block of ice in the cooler. Could you reach it during a pit stop? Could you reach it if you were in a firesuit with a helmet on? Could you close it up too? Be sure you can, FAST. C. Test the location of the switch near the driver, can you flip it when seated in your race suit with your helmet on? Can someone easily reach it if they’re diving in through the window to help you get in or out? Great! D. Last test, can you reach the quick connect lines to your suit! Make sure you can! We recommend putting them on the door side of the driver so that anyone assisting the driver on driver changes can help too. Don't forget the driver still has to be able to do it all by themself! E. ok, you should know where things are going to go now. Do you have your tools out (power drill/driver, sharpie to mark, wrenches to tighten (nothing fancy))? Great! F. Get out that sharpie & lay out the 4 biggest angle iron pieces around the cooler (the longest section is flat against the deck, the short side pushes on the cooler. Mark around the angle iron with the sharpie so you can pull the cooler away (have it there to know where you’re laying it out). Now pull the cooler away, use the sheet metal screws to hold down the angle iron, leave a center hole open in front of and behind the cooler, that’s where we’ll connect the eyelet loops in the next step. G. Drill a hole through the center of the longest sides (front and back angle iron sections) to hold the eyelets. Use the washers on either side and then the locknut below to hold them in place. H. Use the last smallest length angle iron piece as a mount for the switch and any other miscellaneous gauges you may have in the car, screw it to the dash (with the self tapping screws) or similarly mountable area.

4. Motor Assembly A. Using the layout you identified earlier for where you switch will go, locate the motor just in front of the lower output bulkhead (the low side of the cooler where you put the hole) at least 9” away (leave some room for the hose to come out and reach the lowest point). Secure the pump there. Note when the pump is screwed down by the shield, The outlet flow will point away from the pump horizontally, while the intake will come in from above. This is when you mount the pump so that the screws that hold it down are straight up and down (set these in front of you and it makes perfect sense.) B. Secure the pump in place with the screws. C. Fit the bulkhead plastic barbs in place now (they look like hose heads from your garden hose on one side and the other side will just fit in the milky polyethylene tubing.) Wrap the threads with the included teflon tape first. D. Connect the red wire on the motor to the included red wire. Run that (with space to adhere it to the floor and use the included zip tie wraps to hold it down in place. The same goes for the black wire to the negative motor lead (note, this is the black one). Both wires should be brought to where the switch will be (leaving the space to connect it to the floor as mentioned before, you want to route it so the cable is out of the way of your feet when switching drivers). E. Cut the black wire and join it to one end of the switch with the butt connector, then the same with the black wire at the other end of the switch. Continue routing the wire in a safe, away from the driver location to the 12 volt cigarette power outlet. Note: repeatedly test the flow of the pump (and thus the polarity of the voltage coming out of the cigarette lighter) so the water flows correctly out of the pump!

5. Line Assembly A. Take the milky large diameter polyethylene tubing and measure it to two identical lengths (one will run to the shirt, the other from the shirt back to the cooler). B. Run one section of the tubing from the lower bulkhead to the pump, then match the tubing remaining length to the door side of the driver where it will be located for their use. Hand tighten the hose clamps over the tubing. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN! Only hand tight, do not crush the material, the pump heads will crack if over tightened. That’s bad. C. Run the tubing to the other bulkhead Tips, to soften the ends of the tubing use the exhaust from a generator or car. It’s just warm enough to soften the plastic without damaging it. Try 5-10 second blasts of heat (hold it a couple of inches away from the tip, don’t want to scorch/melt the plastic.) Then it will slide right over the pump and barbs to stay put. D. Cut the foam insulation to fit over the tubing (peel the yellow tape and it’ll stick to itself), and use the zip tie mounts to hold the insulated cooling lines in place.

6. Testing A. Put in a 10lb. block of ice. fill with water till the water covers the upper bulkhead hole (this is important). Connect your cool shirt and run it. B. Does it leak? C. Does the water flow? D. Does the pump lack pressure? E. How long does it last (put on your firesuit over it all and see if you don’t appreciate it then!).

Racing Use: 1. For prep please ready your ice BEFORE the event. You have a few options for icing your cooler. A. My favorite version is to use a pre-frozen gallon milk jug frozen solid. have 4 of these at the ready, along with 3 bags of ice, and a pound of dry ice, all preferably in the same cooler, dry ice on top. With another 3 gallons of bottled water. Use the chip ice to fill in around the block, then water to the top of the return line port. B. If that's not an option, we prefer to use 10 pound blocks of ice. Have 4 of these at the ready per 12 hours of racing in the heat, along with 3 bags of chip ice, and a pound of dry ice, all preferably in the same cooler, dry ice on top. With another 3 gallons of bottled water. Include a big scoop to get the melted ice (water) out of the cooler, before replacing a new block. Use the chip ice to fill in around the block, then water to the top of the return line port. C. The last option is to have around 7 bags of ice per day, and a pound of dry ice, all preferably in the same cooler, dry ice on top. With another 3 gallons of bottled water. Use the chip ice to fill in around the block, then water to the top of the return line port.

Special warnings, dry ice is SUPER COLD AND WILL BURN YOU, ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES WHEN MOVING IT AND PREFERABLY WITH TONGS. ALSO DO NOT STORE IT IN A SMALL ENCLOSED AIRSPACE, IT WILL KNOCK YOU OUT THEN SUFFOCATE YOU. (so just keep it somewhere vented) When it's in the cooler, keep it on the very top, it will prevent any melt on your main bulk of ice. You can typically get it from ice cream stores and other specialty food places. It really does the job, it will ensure you have nice cold blocks of ice a day or two later when you need them at a multi day event.

Priming and cooling: 1. To prime the lines: A. Connect a shirt to the system to fully prime it. Please pre-prime all shirts race day, this will enable a faster time to cooling for the drivers. This means repeat the priming process with each shirt to race, prior to wearing (and please try to keep it somewhere mildly cool before putting it on).

       B. Fill with ice (as noted above) and bottled/filtered water (this cuts down on calcium buildup in the lines). 
       C. Make SURE the water that fills in COVERS the return hole in the cooler (the one on top should have the water coming back in when it's all connected and running.
       D. Fill with ice (as noted above) and bottled/filtered water (this cuts down on calcium buildup in the lines). 
       E. Turn on the system till flow begins (you should see/feel it come out the top hole into the main cooler area.) If so, it's primed.
       F. Make Sure to prime ALL the shirts you'll run that day so you're ready at pit stops to put in a driver who can begin cooling straight away, remember they probably waited fully suited on a pit wall in a firesuit & helmet for 5-10 minutes already and are looking for relief immediately.

In Car Operation

       A. The unit is initially designed to be operated with the on/off switch. 
       B. Please mount the switch so the driver can see it's position, and that he/she can easily reach it, however keeping it out of the "regular driving cluster" (wheel/shifter area) so as not to impeded the driver's racing actions. On the center console or in the area just above where the door and steering wheel are closest. 
       C. ALWAYS draw an indicator for on and off (currently not included, so you can make funny signs like, "Fonzy", or "Vanilla" or,, Cool.
       D. Drivers will note when cooling is wearing off for initial tests/races note this and set a stopwatch for cooling. Time ice changes to co-incide with changes. Usually good for between and hour and a half and four hours depending on usage, heat, and driver preferences. 
       E. Upon return to the pits for a pitstop ALWAYS REMEMBER TO UNCOUPLE FROM THE COOL SUIT SYSTEM!

Pit Stop Process: Write this part

Plugging in your shirt:

       A. Get seated in the driver's seat and buckled in wearing your gear, make sure your hoses aren't kinked as they come out

plug in your shirt by sliding back the female connector cover and pushing in the male connector. flip the switch for cool (once the power to the car is on of course)

Unplugging your shirt:

       A: Slide the female quick release backwards to eject the male quick release part (attached to the hose in your shirt), get out of the vehicle (the next teammate should be driving now)

Maintenance:

       A:Clean cooler with regular 409 and keep the system dry when storing (those of you in northern climates know why)

make sure to blow all the water out of the shirts before putting them away (hint, blow them out when you get out of the car with your charged air tanks, then you won't need to think about it.

       B: Check for leaks prior to running and for tightness on the hose clamps.
       C: Silicone lube (spray) the outside of the female quick release to keep it working smoothly

Use of my Cheetah for teeth cleaning operations:

      A: This is a test to see if you read the whole thing.
      B: This is only a test
      C: In the event of an actual cheetah, it's already too late.