Safety Equipment

Given some of the recent threads I am wondering how many of you out there are tracking with proper safety equipment. Not to be morbid but please think about these thing. IMO these are most important mods if you are tracking. P-Cars are capable of serious speed and consequences thereof. Just a short commercial for these things: Structural safety equipment such as roll bars and cages protect you from metal deformation and provide anchor points for seats and harnesses Seats and harnesses: Give you better control and improve your times. Also distribute g-forces in the event of a crash. One common source of racing injuries is when the car stops and the driver doesn't. You hit the interior or cage at track speed. You avoid these by being completely snug in the seat and rollbar padding, etc. Horsecollar and/or HANS restraint can prevent major neck trauma. Window net if you are driving with open windows. Chrome trim taped down (not an issue in Pcars I think). These have caused serious havoc coming off in crashes. Helmet: Snell 95 or better. Nomex lined. Full Face. Blood type, drug allergies, etc clearly printed on the back. Suit/Gloves/Shoes. OK, you might look like a dork at a DE but it is YOUR bod. Fire extinguisher. Fuel Cell. Driver: If you spin, both feet in. Clutch and brake all the way down. Let go of the steering wheel if you are going to hit something. Your wrists will thank you.

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Agree with all, but, Also make sure your name is on the helmet. It will increase the chances that an EMT will believe the info. Often times, even with the name, an EMT will not assume this to be the correct info. Just depends on the EMT. A medical bracelet listing these things is usually better. After all, what might someone be more likely to borrow, a helmet or a medical bracelet?

good point. My background is SCCA road racing. Never even occurred to me about helmet borrowing.

Lee, excellent thread! This is the first thing I am going to do, thnaks for bringing it to my attention.

Good points, safety is paramount. I have been thinking about it a lot lately, the recent tragedy really hit it home, running my 996 in the "fast" DE run group amongst a bunch of race cars gives me cause for concern. Here I am with a helmet and a seat belt, just one mistake away from a potential disaster at these speeds. I need to significantly upgrade the safety equipment before I am ready to hit the track again. I am planning a DAS roll bar and 6 points in addition to my present equipment. The list of mods should be #1 safety, #2 driving lessons, #3 performance mods.

Well put Doug.

When I moved up from the C2 to the GT3 I made safety a priority. I got the Techequipment rollbar with cross brace, Schroth 6 point harness and GT3 seat. I had the sport seats in my old car and had to brace myself for many of the turns. Having a proper seat and the harness to hold you in place is key to both performing better and increasing safety. As for helmets, I would say SA2000 is a must as protection decreases with age. Also, don't use a motorcycle helmet as auto helmets are designed for different types of crashes (a guy from Bell gave me a 20 minute lecture on the differences in design & function between the two). I use a neck collar and think of it as very cheap insurance if the unthinkable happens. I don't think a fuel cell is necessary in our cars (I don't think the Cup cars have them) due to the design of the 911. However, I do still need to get an extinguisher. I've seen a few fires at the track and I think of it more as something I might need to help someone else out with.

My first and only mods were the gt3 seats, 6-point schroth harness, DAS roll bar and the safecraft fire extinguisher. After the recent event I went ahead and bought the Isaac H&N restraint too. Our cars have plenty of power and have amazing handling right out of the box, the weakest link is safety. Some pictures

Holger B, with all that money invested in car and safety equipment, and the fact that you have the right belts, you really, really should get a HANS. Really.

My first and only mods were the gt3 seats, 6-point schroth harness, DAS roll bar and the safecraft fire extinguisher. After the recent event I went ahead and bought the Isaac H&N restraint too. Our cars have plenty of power and have amazing handling right out of the box, the weakest link is safety. ___________ absolutely

Yup. Got the Shroth 6 points and just purchased the Tequipment roll bar. Next in line are the GT3 seats. All for the C4S. Pretty much what jeeva has. Have had a fire extinguisher in the car ever since I tried to help put out a fire on a Lotus Esprit by throwing dirt at it. My challenge now is the Boxster. It's got the roll hoops, which have now been extended permanently on the 987S, welded to the chassis so it's even better than the tequipment bolt on. Problem are the seats. The new seats have airbags on the side. I have to find a way to replace the seats with GT3 or simillar seats without having the airbag alarm going off. Maybe the new GT3 seats on the 997 GT3 when it comes out will have these airbags and can bolt right in.

It's great to see this dialog and to see people taking action to protect themselves and their passengers. Please work with a professional to make sure everything is installed correctly. Anchor points, both location and type, are very important for your belts. Palting, please don't use those harnesses until you get your new seats. Have a great day. I'm headed for the track. Jim

Is it dangerous to run a rollbar (not a cage) without wearing a helmet (in a car only used around town and in the mountains)??

Great thread. I've recently talked to one of our instructors who's also a chief ot tech. The only concern he expressed with installing the roll-bar, is if the car is ever driven on the street. An accident on the street with a roll-bar installed could be deadly, as noone probably wears a helmet outside of the track. Something to think about....

Rollbar padding is cheap. You can put it on the rollbar with wrap-ties. If you have room for an extra layer, use it. . Make sure the sharp cutoffs on the wrap tie face away from you. If you don't have room for your helmet, cut the ties when you go to the track. BTW as a former Miata owner, I always felt safer in the street with the rollbar. I figured it gave me some structure if I ever got T-boned.

When I had my big racing crash my head hit the cage so hard that I couldn't see for what felt like several minutes but it was likely just seconds. That was with a very good helmet and the super dense, high priced rollbar padding. That type of hit on the street would be real bad. What are the chances of the seat breaking ar in some other way your head getting to where the rollbar is? Who knows? All this stuff is such a compromise when you use your car on both the street and the track. Jim

So...if you don't have two cars what do you do ? Are there removeable roll-bars out there ?

One of the reasons I went the dedicated race car route.

From what I can tell, it's unlikely in my car that I could make contact with the bar unless the seat (GT3 in my case) came loose. If the accident were that severe, I'm not sure if it would matter if I then hit the bar.

I probably will eventually. The technology is relatively new, so I'd like to see it evolve more before I get one. For my driving style and the tracks & events that I run at, I feel good about my current setup.

Lee, Can I quote your safety review as a good reason when I show up home with another Porsche and my wife goes postal ??? Seriously I'm sort of thinking about it. In Canada you can get an early 996 pretty darn cheap. Lot's of lease returns.

well, i guess with your instructors rationale, a lot of boxster owners would be killed. the roll hoops on the boxster are closer to the head than a roll bar would be with a 996. actually, my head is closer to the roof frame (which joins the a-pillar and b-pillar) than the roll bar. i think it all is height dependent as well. the taller you are the closer you are to the roll bar AND the roof frame. actually a tall person's head might be right beside the b-pillar. might as well pad it then, huh?...

A dedicted track car is the ideal way to go,...but there is also tremendous fun in taking your daily driver to the track and truly testing it's limits (boy, the limits, which I have'nt even remotely approached yet, is simply phenomenal, infact driving my p-car on hwys. is so boring for me now, I rarely do so) without the hassles of owning a trailer. But, there is always compromises in having a street/track car for safety. If you look at the pictures I posted, the middle one shows where the bar is in relation to the headrest, the headreast is at least a foot away from the bar, and my head is a few inches lower than the headrest, so the only way for me to hit the bar is for the seats to come off it's attachements and my big head stretching the belts to pop up higher than the headreast, I think there is negligible chance of that happening at street speeds, and in fact I did'nt even install the high density padding I bought. I know ii's easily possible for the seat to flex rearwards and the belts to stretch and the head to come up, but if the seat does'nt break there is no way for my head to hit that horizontal bar. Roll cages (as in Jim,B track car) how ever are a totally different. There is extra safety in other aspects of a stock car..., airbags, AWD, PSM.

Your instructor was probably talking about a roll cage , not a roll bar. A roll bar is not so much a concern to an un-helmeted driver as a cage, with the bars overhead and running down the A-pillars to their mounting points, would be. Personally, just as I wouldn't race in a car without a cage, I wouldn't drive on the street in a car with a cage, sans helmet (which would look pretty stupid, so I just wouldn't do it). It's good to see everyone here thinking safety and it is a very healthy response to Ben's accident. It'd be nice to think that someone's life could be saved from the discussions that have taken place after the tragedy.

SRL, It was a rollbar...not a cage. I posed a question about installing a tequipment roll bar in my 996, while the 964 is getting an engine transplant...

The 996 tequipment roll-bar is a bolt-in. The problem is one has to remove both seats each time, which is a major PITA..

hey is that TD in DC behind you (your avatar) ?

just ordered the isaac link, sparco/schroth 6pts and tequipment roll bar came in yesterday. busy weekend ahead.

Yeah..that pic was taken about 3 seconds before he blew my doors off on the back straight at Mid-Ohio... Here is the link to TD's recording of the event. You can see my car in front of him for about 10 seconds in the beginning of the clip... MID-OHIO LAP Try right-clicking to save locally as the file may take a while to download. PS1. TD, hope you don't mind me posting the vid... PS2. Lee sorry for the hijack...

Jeeva, The roll bars you installed do seem to condemn your back seat right ? Furthermore, do the GT3 seat lift forward to grant access to the rear ?

Damn straight. Honey, you care about my safety right? How can she say no?

The gt3 seats do not fold, you could only move them forward and back. Yes, the rear seats are not usable with DAS bolt-on roll bar, but from a previous thread someone had mentioned a porsche tequipment bar with no cross beams, which may allow the use of back seat, but I can't imagine how. Also, it would'nt work with gt3 seats, so you have to at least have the passenger seats stock to gain entry. (a word of caution, some pca clubs like allegheny PCA requires the same seats and harness for driver and instructor) All my safety mods. are totally reversible, so I can make my car stock with no marks left behind. I was even able to get the carpet piece covering the rear suspension which need to be removed (thanks to Austin at Devek, a site sponsor) so I saved the stock one and cut the one I bought . P.S: All these safety mods. don't come cheap....the leather gt3 seats, Das bar, 6-point schroth harness, safecraft fir extinguisher, all the little attachements needed, H&N restraint and labor adds up to about ~$7,000. There are cheaper seats, fire extinguisher etc., but this is safety in style.

hey jeeva, how did you mount your 6 points? cradle style, where you sit on the sub strap with the straps mounted at the lap belt points, or sub straps thru the sub hole mounted onto a bk sub cross bar?

sub strap through the sub hole and attached to the bk sub bar..., a word of caution, the bk sub-mount that also mounts to the fire extinguisher has a nice hole where you can just clip the sub belts, however the porsche tequipment sub bar that I bought for the driver's side (this is cheaper than the BK, and I am not mounting the fire extinguisher on the driver's side) does not have the hole, my mechanic did not want to drill a hole and jeopordize the strength, so he removed the buckle and attached the sub-belts looping around the bar like how the shoulder belts would loop around the roll bar.

thx jeeva. how are your lap belts mounted? i have a sparco evo2 seat w/bk side mounts. the bk side mounts allow for the usage of the stock belt buckle along with a bk eyelet to be mounted on the tunnel side, bk side mount/rail (for when you don't want to use a harness). i will be mounting the outside lap belt to the stock belt points and i am wondering if there is another location to mount the tunnel side lap belt.

Jeeva, Is the DAS bar easy to remove between track events?

I am not exactly sure what your question is, it sounds like you would like to know how my tunnel side or internal lap belts are mounted. I am also using BK mounts, which allows for both the stock 3-point and the schroth 6-point belts to be mounted together. When I am not using the 6-point, it can be stored away (like shown in the picture), I took various angles of the internal BK mounting point to which the internal lap belts (both 3 and 6 point) are mounted. Hope it helps, if you have any further qustions, don't hesitate to ask. I got all of these from Austin at Devek (site sponsor), great guy and very helpful, I'll recommend him for anyone who is interested in a similar setup. EDIT: It sounds like you have a similar setup, why would you want to mount the tunnel side lap belt to a different location ?

In my case, NO...infact my mechanic said he is dreading the day I may want it out as he had to hammer it in place, and thinks it may be very difficult to remove. But, others have said they could do it in this forum, but will need the removal of both seats, atleast a couple of hours of back breaking labor.

Thanks, I was afraid it wouldn't be that simple.

I too just did the GT3 seats, the European Porsche Techquipment bar and harness. The shop that did the install races Porsches and they convinced me to go for the Euro bar. The bar arrived a little out of shape and the install was a nightmare taking 2 mechanics all day. I only weigh just shy of 160 lbs and those Gt3 seats are one size fits all and they fit me like a glove. I don't really understand how a significantly larger person would actually fit in those seats. Well I used the car last week at a DE event and the seats make the entire experience so much easier because you're not holding on to the steering wheel for dear life. Oh and BTW I also got the seat back braces for the roll bar so if I hit something going backwards the seats won't break in half. That's another thing to consider. I am relieved to see my fellow posters concentrating on safety. Safe Driving to all.

LOL! i asked you in the first line how did you mount your lap belts then i went on yammering, HAHAHA. thx dude. pictures are worth a thousand words and it looks like i will be setting it up just like you. just was wondering if there was a better tunnel side anchor point. i wasn't sure of the mount on the bk slider was sturdy enough. damn, devek is only a few minutes away and never thought of getting the hardware from them.

I only weigh just shy of 160 lbs and those Gt3 seats are one size fits all and they fit me like a glove. ____________ i am 188#, 5'10" and i feel a tad loose in the seat!

O.K now I get it, my tunnel side lap belts are not directly connected to the "seat slider rail",...there are BK mounts (the bright silver one in picture #3) that mount to the "seat slider rail" and the 3-point and 6-point attaches to the same BK mount. My gt3 seats came with the "seat slider rail" which just bolted on. It may be different for you, yeah! Austin had done several of these and an excellent source for you, tell him I sent you there... cheers Jeeva

(Caution one persons opinion mixed with some facts to follow) The Boxster bar and seat are designed to work together and rearward movement is limited by the firewall as it also is in a 914. Watch a video of a rear end impact and you will be stunned at how stock and many race seats flex and or fail. As the seat is failing and the car is moving forward the occupant is not and impacts into anything that is behind them. The seat is also only as good as the mount. Race seats mounted on the little stock bolts and sliders are not much if any better than stock with regards to a full on failure. Soft roll bar padding is worthless for anything other than nuisance head dings while crawling around in the car. Period. The hard SFI stuff is the material to use but it only works with helmets not naked head. Roll bars are unsafe for heads. The shape of round pipes is very good at cracking skulls compared to flat surfaces. G for G hitting you head on a pipe will cause more damage than say, the side glass. If Elly May is going to hit me on the head for coming home late and drunk, make it the frying pan and not the pump handle. The roll bar will add safety when you are on the track. The majority of this is coming from it being a great place to attach harnesses. On the street given the unlikelihood of a roof crushing impact but the far more prevalent chance of a mid to high G impact without intrusion the roll bar will not truly add to your protection unless you are in yotr 5 or 6 point system and are protected from hitting it. The down side being that most stock seats are not enough protection.

so then you are saying boxster owners are guaranteed a nasty head injury since the roll bar is quite a bit closer than the roll bar in my 996

Jeeva, When I bought my BK harness brackets, there was only one size tunnel side bracket. Now they have 2, the standard and the short. Which one do you have? Just wondering if I need to get something different for the GT3 seats.

Palting, I did'nt know there were two different sizes, so I don't know which one I have,...unless you can tell from the pictures. You may want to call Austin at Devek, he will know...I know my mechanic had no problems with the set-up, except for the sub-belt mounting on the porsche tequipment sub-belt bar. Jeeva

Quite the opposite. In you car when the seat fails you will spill out backwards with nothing to stop you as you migrate into the back seat area. With the Boxster you hit the firewall BEFORE you spill out of the seat. This is not a case of distance is better. It is the spilling out part that is the problem. When this happens the head rest is no longer there to be between your head and the bar. The base of the seat remains planted and your head moves back/ up and away from the headrest. Bear in mind that this is a hard *** hit from behind and not a �oops� fender bender type event being discussed.

Karlooz, No Kurt is not saying that the boxter owners are in peril of having there heads opened up on a rear collision, to the contrary, he is saying the firewall will act as the seat brace and will prevent you from hitting the roll bar. how ever, Kurt your statement that "Race seats mounted on the little stock bolts and sliders are not much if any better than stock with regards to a full on failure.", proves my point, that is if you agree that these stock seats are tested to not break-off in a rear collision, otherwise we are all in trouble with or without roll bars. How safe would one be if their seats are breaking off the sliders irrelevent of the roll bar. So, we can assume that it is rare for the seat to break off. Now THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY DON'T FLEX, INFACT THE FLEXING IS PART OF THE SAFETY FEATURE, AND THEY FLEX EVEN ON MODERATE COLLISIONS. But if it does not come off of the slider, the seat will describe an arc flexing back, and the harness WILL stretch to pull your head up, so if you are a few inches away from the bar, you are certain to hit the bar, but if you are more than a foot away, it's unlikely. (I just measured it, it's about 11 to 12 inches away) Dave,S. Placing a back brace is not full proof either, as the seats in our cars are designed to flex to absorb the impact, and preventing it could in theory pass all that impact on to you the passenger, and all those organs floating inside. So, there is always compromises, I'll take my chances with my set up, and as I am 5'10" there is no way for my head to hit the bar, unless the seat breaks off...but if the collision was severe enough to un-bolt the seat, what are my chances with or without the bar. How ever, I am a hell of a lot safer at the track with my set up. Jeeva edit: Kurt, I did'nt see your post when i started pecking away at the key board.

sorry, your theory is not convincing me. if the seat fails in a boxster the first thing that the seat back hits is the cross bar of the roll hoops not the firewall. then when your body spills out the first thing that would hit the hoops is your head. try reclining the seat of boxster all the way back (without sliding the seat back) and you will see what i mean. i did it in my old boxster just for giggles and it was eyeopeing. since then i drove with a minimal recline angle. this all comes with a caveat, however. i sat very low so that i would have the most amount of over-head space. when i tilt the seat back all the way the head is exposed. if you bring the seat up in height then the headrest may cover the hoops, but now you would be riding real high. YMMV going back to my car, i can use a seat back brace and minimize rearward seat deformation.

Kurt, this does'nt make any sense, if you are ONLY talking about spilling out of the seats, surely if the seat is flexing back and it's stopped by the firewall, all that energy is transferred to you and you will spill out even more, on the other hand, if the seat absorbs some of the energy by flexing and there is no firewall to stop, you will spill out less. But, without the firewall the seat can only flex so much and may give in and totally break off.

This is why short answers to complex issues are not advised. I only posted here to clarify an off line discussions that was being commented on in this thread. Clarity was not achieved. Sorry for stirring the pot. The spilling I was talking about is rearward and from the previously mentioned seat deformation. When the seat moves during an impact you are not held in as well as if it did not. You do not want your torso to flop around during a high G event. Your body can absorb tremendous peak G loading if it is not bounced around and off of things during. In order for you to sustain internal organ injury from the differential in specific gravity of organs you would need to be in a very high G or a whipping type event. So high in fact that this would be one of the lesser worries in a non whip event unless the car were built to full pro F1, or NASCAR type specs and structurally able to sustain this loading. The most likely of the S.G. type internal injuries is the brain disconnecting type and they are most often from impact during whipping and not linear deceleration. Being loose in the car would increase the chance of this type of event. You are right, the seat can flex or fully fail and then you become loose enough to flop around and hit things. In a cab the roll bar is a truly needed and safety enhancing device that is there because there is no structural strength in the movable or hard top. The best setup is one that holds you in place and away from hard stuff There is a lot to this and there is a good thread or two in the racing and drivers ed forum that I recommend for anyone that has further interest.