Guys,
This thread may be better-placed in another area, so feel free to move, but I wanted to provide some perspectives on track safety as I've explored what to do with my car for DE days.
Quick context being that I'm, basically, a safety nut. I've had past (bad) experiences on track that reinforce this perspective.
I never tracked my boss because it didn't have any add'l safety equipment and I wanted to keep the back seats usable for street use.
With the R - I have no back seats to start with and I do intend to track the car, so the first mod to the car will be a 4-point roll bar. I've concluded that I'm going to have a custom-fabricated 4-point built in the car. Primary reasoning: I have a local fabricator with a very good reputation (TC Designs). Tony is a racer himself, a thoughtful and safety-minded guy, and does a ton of work for local owners and his reputation is just outstanding.
We've spent a couple sessions talking about what I want and what he thinks would work best, and going with a very solid design with a main hoop, down bars that run mostly-parallel to the body so that the feet land at the same place front-to-back as the Watson unit but much further outboard. Tony believes this will be stronger. I'm careful not to overlook Watson's deep experience with these cars, and I've talked to Patrick quite a bit about why their bar is designed the way it is. I think the placement of their rear feet is very good, but does make a concession to allow for DIY bolt-in installation. (One option I explored was to use the Watson bar and have Tony install it / potentially weld it in.
In addition to the harness bar running across the main hoop, Tony will build a full 'X' within the main hoop, and a full 'X' from the main hoop back to the rear feet...with gussets on both. (of the many race cars Tony's had in his shop when I've been over there, he's got a couple rally cars - street and dirt - and beyond my strong fondness for rally, I'm drawn to the lessons learned building those cages which are among the safest - by regulation - in motorsports.
We're going to use a 'krinckle' finish in matt black as it resists scratching better, there's nothing shiny to distract you, and it seems to blend with the interior of the car better.
it's also a little less 'hey look at me' for street driving / encounters with the local gendarme.
The last consideration (and I know this is a consideration for many of you) is the ability to remove the bar if / when you I sell the car. It's not a particularly important consideration for me but what Tony's been doing in many customer's cars - such as GT3's - that tend to trade them a lot, is to weld bracket / feet to the car (and optimize placement of those as described above - without having to consider where they can get access to bolt through back plates)...and the feet with will have upright bolts that the bar, then, bolts to. Tony believes that the strength of that setup is very comparable to a full weld-in but, again accommodates removing the bar for use in another car. So that's what I'm doing.
Tony also believes that his bar will fit significantly better / tighter in the car...so we'll see.
The biggest obvious downside is cost. It'll end up being ~$1,500 more than the Watson bar...but I probably wouldn't install the bar myself anyway, so with labor it'll be less than $1k difference.
While he's at it, he'll also do some setup work for seats / harnesses...and this is where things got interesting from my perspective. (beyond the fact that he'd just had another GT350 in the shop for an alignment and could only get ~1.4 negative front camber...he was strongly encouraging me to get camber plates before I even hit the track the first time).
I was dead-set on having him install a fixed-back seat and 6-point while the car was there (or, at least, get all the seat hardware and belt mounting figured out). His recommendation surprised me. He recommended that I keep the current seat in the car and use a 4-point ASM harness from Schroth. His point is two-fold: 1) the Recaro's that are in our cars are significant pieces of engineering and while they're not fixed-back, have been engineered (and tested) with withstand incredible impacts. They also have the torso bags in them which provides a meaningful amount of additional protection; 2) the 4-point with ASM is safer than a 5 or 6-point unless the sub strap(s) are placed and secured properly. His contention is that many of the sub strat setups he's seeing - including the sit-on-the-strap setups do more potential harm than good. His assertion was that the only reason I should be thinking of an aftermarket seat setup, at this point, is if I can't get a decent seating position in the car with my helmet on...read: can't get low enough. Bumping your head on the roof is not only a pain, but it's dangerous. You want to be asa low in the car as possible.
I know there are not necessarily any 'right' answers on this, I just wanted to play back what I'm hearing from someone who knows his stuff.
Re: the rollbar fab, he'll start on that this coming Friday so I'll have pics / etc maybe 10 days after that (oh, that's the other downside...I'll be without my car for 10 days! ;-(
This thread may be better-placed in another area, so feel free to move, but I wanted to provide some perspectives on track safety as I've explored what to do with my car for DE days.
Quick context being that I'm, basically, a safety nut. I've had past (bad) experiences on track that reinforce this perspective.
I never tracked my boss because it didn't have any add'l safety equipment and I wanted to keep the back seats usable for street use.
With the R - I have no back seats to start with and I do intend to track the car, so the first mod to the car will be a 4-point roll bar. I've concluded that I'm going to have a custom-fabricated 4-point built in the car. Primary reasoning: I have a local fabricator with a very good reputation (TC Designs). Tony is a racer himself, a thoughtful and safety-minded guy, and does a ton of work for local owners and his reputation is just outstanding.
We've spent a couple sessions talking about what I want and what he thinks would work best, and going with a very solid design with a main hoop, down bars that run mostly-parallel to the body so that the feet land at the same place front-to-back as the Watson unit but much further outboard. Tony believes this will be stronger. I'm careful not to overlook Watson's deep experience with these cars, and I've talked to Patrick quite a bit about why their bar is designed the way it is. I think the placement of their rear feet is very good, but does make a concession to allow for DIY bolt-in installation. (One option I explored was to use the Watson bar and have Tony install it / potentially weld it in.
In addition to the harness bar running across the main hoop, Tony will build a full 'X' within the main hoop, and a full 'X' from the main hoop back to the rear feet...with gussets on both. (of the many race cars Tony's had in his shop when I've been over there, he's got a couple rally cars - street and dirt - and beyond my strong fondness for rally, I'm drawn to the lessons learned building those cages which are among the safest - by regulation - in motorsports.
We're going to use a 'krinckle' finish in matt black as it resists scratching better, there's nothing shiny to distract you, and it seems to blend with the interior of the car better.
it's also a little less 'hey look at me' for street driving / encounters with the local gendarme.
The last consideration (and I know this is a consideration for many of you) is the ability to remove the bar if / when you I sell the car. It's not a particularly important consideration for me but what Tony's been doing in many customer's cars - such as GT3's - that tend to trade them a lot, is to weld bracket / feet to the car (and optimize placement of those as described above - without having to consider where they can get access to bolt through back plates)...and the feet with will have upright bolts that the bar, then, bolts to. Tony believes that the strength of that setup is very comparable to a full weld-in but, again accommodates removing the bar for use in another car. So that's what I'm doing.
Tony also believes that his bar will fit significantly better / tighter in the car...so we'll see.
The biggest obvious downside is cost. It'll end up being ~$1,500 more than the Watson bar...but I probably wouldn't install the bar myself anyway, so with labor it'll be less than $1k difference.
While he's at it, he'll also do some setup work for seats / harnesses...and this is where things got interesting from my perspective. (beyond the fact that he'd just had another GT350 in the shop for an alignment and could only get ~1.4 negative front camber...he was strongly encouraging me to get camber plates before I even hit the track the first time).
I was dead-set on having him install a fixed-back seat and 6-point while the car was there (or, at least, get all the seat hardware and belt mounting figured out). His recommendation surprised me. He recommended that I keep the current seat in the car and use a 4-point ASM harness from Schroth. His point is two-fold: 1) the Recaro's that are in our cars are significant pieces of engineering and while they're not fixed-back, have been engineered (and tested) with withstand incredible impacts. They also have the torso bags in them which provides a meaningful amount of additional protection; 2) the 4-point with ASM is safer than a 5 or 6-point unless the sub strap(s) are placed and secured properly. His contention is that many of the sub strat setups he's seeing - including the sit-on-the-strap setups do more potential harm than good. His assertion was that the only reason I should be thinking of an aftermarket seat setup, at this point, is if I can't get a decent seating position in the car with my helmet on...read: can't get low enough. Bumping your head on the roof is not only a pain, but it's dangerous. You want to be asa low in the car as possible.
I know there are not necessarily any 'right' answers on this, I just wanted to play back what I'm hearing from someone who knows his stuff.
Re: the rollbar fab, he'll start on that this coming Friday so I'll have pics / etc maybe 10 days after that (oh, that's the other downside...I'll be without my car for 10 days! ;-(
