If a GT3 can have a Roll Bar, why can't I?
 

As I slowly make my way down the slippery slope, I have come to the point of contemplating a roll bar for my 80% street / 20% DE 87 Carrera. The gent that died at Summit Point this past summer (in a S2000 - RIP) was a family friend of my wife, so you can bet I am hearing all about safety on the track. (Latest speculation to the cause of the accident was a shattered rear rotor at high speed on a straight - why don't they publicize this stuff so we can learn from it?)

So the only way I am going to get back out there is with a 5/6 point harness, proper seat, and a Hans device. I don't have the garage space or money for a dedicated track car, so I am left with modifying the Carrera. However, I want to keep the 80/20 mix. So I started researching roll bars in street cars...

I came across this thread that discussed whether overall safety is increased or decreased on the street with a roll bar (potential head injuries vs roll over protection):

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=367299&highlight=roll+bar+safe+st reet

At last count, the poll was at 65% for safer w/ the bar, 35% not safer (without helmet and other stuff). Some replies to the thread mentioned that there was no way a roll bar was safe without a helmet due to your head's tendency to move anywhere from 2-3' from its normal position during a collision.

So I started thinking - aren't new GT3s sold with roll bars that are legal for the street (including older GT3s, 993 RS, and 964 RS)? In our litigious American society, how would this be allowed if they were so unsafe? I understand that the seats are hard backed, but how are they different then what I can buy for my car on the aftermarket? Here are some pics:


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235095656.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235095703.jpg



In addition, if you look at Boxsters and Z3s, their factory roll hoops are pretty close to driver's heads as well.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235095834.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235095862.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235095887.jpg


So what do you think? If these OEM setups are safe enough for the street (and unhelemted heads), can I have a setup like this with a reasonable amount of risk?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235096085.jpg

Tony,

I actually think that for US import they cannot have a roll bar in the new GT3, GT2, etc. I could be wrong on that, but if I recall correctly the 2 differences between US and Euro GT3RS's are that 1) the US version losses the roll bar, and 2) fixed back seats were replaced with sport seats. Porsche has now designed a sport seat that folds so that takes care of #2, but I do believe #1 is still a hurdle that the new owner must install after the purchase.

For added safety in a street car I would consider some high density foam designed specifically for this job.

US market cars are not available with a roll bar. One can be purchased from the Tequipment catalog and installed by a dealer though.

The idea of a "street/de" car is a compromise, especially as more components that used to be "for racers only" have become either 1) more readily available to the DE crowd or 2) We pretend to be much safer than our predecessors.

As for the accident at SP.. guess what, at 120mph if your rear rotor explodes, you could be "sol" with or without a rollbar, imho. To protect yourself 100% would require a Hans, harnesses, race containment seat and full cage.

If you ever look at a crash in slow motion it is amazing how much your head/neck and whole body move. On the street its very possible for your head to flop around a smack the rollbar... or the steering wheel.. or the drivers window.. of the winshield.

My apologies - I wasn't saying that anything would save you if your rear brake rotor exploded going real fast and you totally lost control, I was just illustrating what was the speculated reason for the accident and how the lack of information about what really happens in accidents like these could potentially make us a safer DE community. But since it did not happen on a public road, there is no requirement to make anything public (NTSB)...


OK so take out the roll bar in the US GT3 (I guess Europeans accept the risk). What about the roll hoops on the Boxsters/Z3s? They are pretty close to your head. Has anyone ever heard of a person in a Boxster hitting their head on the roll hoop?

Oh and yes I agree about the SFI padding - although many say no amount of padding will protect your un-helmeted head.

My argument is with a strong, fixed back seat (much like GT3 seats), the risk of hitting your head on a bar slightly behind the B-pillar is - what, acceptable? I realize this is the key; what amount of risk are you willing to accept. My point is that I believe others driving these cars are accepting a similar amount of risk, so I guess it makes me feel better.

I am also short (5'6") so I am little bit farther forward than most.

If safety is paramount, you should also consider a fuel cell, a 3 layer suit and a fire suppression system... you see, this is a compromise. If you really want to be safe on the track and street, in my opinion, you should not be driving a 22 year old car. With a 22 year old car, you are much less safe on the street, period, compared to a newer car. Get a new BMW/Porsche and you can do both much safer.

Compromise - agreed. The Boxster/GT3 thing just popped in my head last night after I was reading that thread. I wanted to see what you thought...

Newer cars are safer, but I love my Carrera. Yet another compromise.

My 1983 Jeep left the factory with a roll bar covered with flimsy nerf material. It's dangerous that way, but not as dangerous as the car would be without the hoop.

My advice would be to cover everything within 24" of your head with high-density SFI padding. Then drive with the knowledge that your car is now safer in the event of a lateral hit or a rollover.

As a footnote, you'll start looking at the hard edges of the roofline, A-pillar and B-pillar in a whole new way (they're not padded at all). Cars and cages are both made out of steel, and steel hurts when you hit it.

My wife hit her head--hard, bloody, required several stitches--on our Boxster's roll hoop when she was rear-ended by a moron in a Ford Excursion doing 40-50 while trying to deal with kids in the back seat. (Also broke eight ribs.) Don't know what that proves or doesn't prove other than the fact that the Boxster's roll hoops are covered with material that is not cosmetic but is a very high-density shock-absorbent material.

In the same vein, in terms of overall safety I think protecting against a rear-ender--by far the single most common kind of accident in this day of multiple driver distractions--is vastly more important than protecting against a serious rollover in a 911. Consider what you and your seat will do when slammed from behind, with a roll bar's lateral member a foot or less behind your spine. No amount of padding will help when you hit that--or it hits you, whatever you want to call it. My roll bar (street/track '83 SC) has a serious seatback-support unit as part of it. To me, that's a whole lot more important than wondering what will happen in the event of a Daytona 500-type end-over-end crash.

I agree about rear-end impacts being a bigger threat on public roads (although freeway rollovers are not an uncommon occurrence; I've personally seen a lot of them). I added an inch of SFI padding to my Brey-Krause seatback brace. I was little concerned that the foam rubber that comes stock on the thing was really only there to keep it from scratching the back of the race bucket. My spine deserves all the energy absorption I can engineer.

I did exactly that--padded my brace with SFI, which I had welded up to conform laterally to my seat, didn't like the small Brey-Krause unit--but I wonder, do 911s go flat-topped in rollovers? Maybe so, but the ones I've seen seem to end up with a reasonably intact cabin area. Anyway, we don't have crazed freeways in New York. Just the LIE.

Well, great minds think alike.

And since you've done some time as a volunteer EMT, you might see the value of the statistics I just dug up with a search. Every year, rollover accidents account for an astonishing 33% of all auto accident fatalities, even though rollovers occur in only only 3-4% of accidents. 11,000 people die on American roads every year from rollover accidents and about 24,000 suffer permanent disabilities as a result of rollovers.

Also surprising: Federal roof-safety standards have not been updated in 30-odd years, and I think the last attempt to require stronger roofs (proposed under Bush) failed. If that's the case, then a 2009 911 doesn't have to be any safer in a rollover than my '72.

Now, it might be that the mumbers I got are wrong (here's a link to the PDF with the NHTSA report). And it could be that those fatality numbers wouldn't change significantly if all cars came equipped with cages (although a lot of race sanctioning organizations would probably beg to differ). I know that seatbelt use would cut the fatality numbers significantly.

And it might be that the 911 is more sturdy than most when it lands on its roof. But...

http://www.wreckedexotics.com/911/911_091502_007.jpg

This guy might have a roll bar in his car, or it might be an indication of the strength of the 911 greenhouse:

http://www.wreckedexotics.com/911/911_112202_003.jpg
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/911/911_112202_001.jpg


33% of all auto fatalities is pretty significant. I'd love to see the people who believe that a cage or roll bar makes a street car less safe come up with some numbers on cage-induced injuries that might balance out that 11,000 annual fatality number.

Steve I hope your wife is/was ok.

Thanks for those statistics Jack. There was a pic somewhere recently (either here or on Rennlist) that showed a Carrera after a roll over where the A-pillar was completely cut in half. Made me wonder about those roll over standard you mentioned. If you guys have some time, I would love to see pics of your seat back braces and overall setups. Thanks again.

Well, maybe I'll leave mine in. I was planning on taking it out this spring, since I'm done DE'ing...though then I'll have to use it as a single-occupant vehicle (not a big deal, since I only drive it for fun anyway), since the right seat has no back brace.

This GT3 rolled 5 or 6 times at a very high rate of speed at our PCA DE event. You can see it faired well and both driver and passenger walked, away wearing only street belts.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1235150676.jpg

I've never seen a street roll-over until I moved to LA - go figure (big top heavy car + over-reaction = roll over). I used to think how could that ever happen on a highway. Obviously its much better to just hit someone that swerve beyond your cars capability. Very sad and unnerving seeing these.

Anyway - I would be worried on the street (no helmet) with a full roll cage. A behind the seat roll-bar, not as much. Your only likely to hit it in a rear-ended, and as previously mentioned, this can be negated slightly by a good seat or seat bracing. You head moves everywhere regardless of the collision direction.

You need to think about worst case scenarios, and I think you will be better with a rear roll-bar in those instances. I would definitely pad it with very high density material. Regular foam doesn't do anything at these forces. Styrofoam is what you would want. Just look at any helmet - its basically a plastic cover styrofoam bucket. It may hurt if you hit at lower forces, but at high ones, it will absorb enough while hopefully keeping your head from the metal bar.

Styrofoam is definitely _not_ what you want. You want the high-density, microcellular material that is sold by raceware providers for exactly this purpose--padding rollbars/cages. Styrofoam will kill you. Helmets are different.

Perhaps according to US standards (sadly), but I can't believe German or EU standards would be that lax. I think that's why your photo illustration and JMatta's speak volumes...the newer cars are just safer.

While I'm here I'll add my opinion, but emphasize that it's truly only an opinion and I'm no expert. I would think if you're going to be flinging your 911 near or to it's max on a semi regular basis, you'd want at least the rear cage so you can go full harness and HANS. I, too, would risk whatever damage might occur on the street (where I never drive 10/10th or even 9/10ths) to have the added safety on the track.

I actually wouldn't take the photos as evidence of much of anything. A collapsed roof means the car landed upside down with some force. An intact roof can simply mean there wasn't a lot of force transferred/absorbed when the car rolled onto its roof. The big factors are going to be the amount of energy the car is 'carrying' -- the speed it's going when it starts to tumble -- and whether it lands on the roof from some height, or if it's lucky enough to just roll onto the roof.

That said, the newer Porsches might have more strength, and TUV standards might be stricter than the long-out-of-date US ones. I don't know.

It's also interesting when you look at the rollover fatality percentage state by state. Stephan mentioned that there isn't all that much opportunity to go fast for long stretches in his corner of the world. Washington DC has only 10% of its fatalities from rollovers -- where Montana has them cause 67% of its traffic-accident deaths.

Excellent point. And as we all know, the strangest things can happen in a real world accident.

But I still stick with my belief / observation that the newer cars are stronger. :)

I wonder how many of those rollovers on the street are SUVs and Trucks, vs. low sports cars?

It was a wake up moment when I read about running a cage on the street w/o a helmet.

Not an expert but I am thinking the best part of a roll bar (not cage) is for it to anchor a set of five or six point safety harnesses in support of a proper race seat for track use. If approached with some common sense this should not hurt street safety.

If one puts the hoop right behind the head with a hinged seat that is to low for the driver and dose not restrict side to side movement might be a potently fatal idea.

Adding a proper race seat that fit's correctly, something to limits the seat from collapsing backward if a bar of an SCCA style seat support, a hoop that is back from the drivers head some, and proper padding on the bar should greatly improve track safety and not add significantly to risk when not wearing a helmet on the street.

At least that is my two cents worth. :)

Very interesting discussion. A question that occurs to me in reading through this: does anyone know if the factory "Targa bar" provides any greater (or lesser) integrity in the event of roll vs. the B & C pillars on a stock coupe?

My guess is no. Open cars are considered risker than coupes. Should the top pop off in a roll it could add its own risk on top of exposing arms and the body to intrusion.

SUVs and Pickup trucks rollover more than most other vehicles. But don't take that as too much comfort. The group paired with them for most-frequent rollovers are sports cars -- the low and wide Corvette is one of the rollover leaders.

Aggressive driving speeds are the culprit with sports cars.

Which of course is something none of us has ever engaged in.

Porcupines!

It is the type of drivers that drive the cars, not the cars so much.

Great conversation guys. I installed a DAS rollbar this winter. Would someone be so kind to post a link where I could buy the padding Steven and others have mentioned? Thanks in advance.

Pgasus

OG Racing

Jegs

I have an auto power rollbar wich is scca aproved.

Jacks posts have been informative, and his link is the right stuff for padding.

As a racer, and a DE guy, here's what I would suggest:

Add the rollbar. It will give you some peace of mind, and a place to properly position a 5-6-7 point belt system. Your wife will approve. If possible have it custom made to fit snuggly to the body, and away from you. Bolt in versions are often less fitted, and therefor closer to your head. For extra bonus points, add a diagonal from the mid point of the roll bar to the base of the A pillar. This bar would help in the event of a T-bone. I'd do a bolt in version and have tabs welded to the floor at the A pillar and on the roll bar. That way you can remove it between events.

Add a 5-6-7 point belt system, and position it properly. I can give you the SCCA specs, or the manufacturer has them as well. Buy quality. Personally I like the twist open style. Easier to assemble.

Add a good seat. FIA seats are designed for use in racing without a backbrace. They must be properly mounted. Non FIA seats need a backbrace. As Jack pointed out, you need to properly pad and construct this important part.

In my (strong) opinion, the HANS is the defacto standard, like Kleenex. But it isn't the best for your application. I suggest the Issac system. It has great sled test numbers, and MUCH better lateral numbers, and most racing and track hits are everything but straight on. Offset and lateral hits are the most common. Most rollovers have high lateral content. Because it has better lateral protection, you won't need a halo seat, as you would with a HANS to achieve equivalent protection. Halo seats are a real pain to get into and out of, especially if your car is damaged, and you need to climb out through the window. For a daily driver, no comparison.

http://www.isaacdirect.com/

Having worn both the HANS and the Issac, I have found the Issac offers more range of motion, (Unless the HANS is worn overly loose, and that defeats it's purpose) and is easier to get in and out of the car. It's kinda neat, your helmet is connected to rollers on the belts by 2 dampers. So it works in both directions. And the geometry and bi directional action (I think) is what gives it the better lateral numbers. And it won't slip off the belts. (A friend had a hard side impact, broke a rib or two, had the HANS and the right belts, and it still slipped off. He had his bell rung and a sore neck for weeks. I also got turned into the guardrail in my race car at Watkins Glen, and broke some ribs, but no neck soreness or any problems at all. The hit didn't seem that violent, until we needed the porta power to pull the A pillar and B pillars out.)

Anyway, I think that combo is best for your situation. If you were in a formula car, or a dedicated racer, I might modify the advice.

Thanks Jack, much appreciated.

Great advice - thank you much.:)

I respectfully disagree. Back in the early 90's we had a high hp '91 Turbo hit something slippery (speculation-oil from a broken oil line on a 914 in front of him) under full boost just past the flag tower at Summit. Got sideways, and rolled several times before coming to rest. Was probably well past 120. Had a properly installed Autopower roll bar, stock seats and harnesses. Driver and instructor got out, bruised and shaken but otherwise OK. You could see where the roof collapsed against the bar, and how the bar slightly deflected the floor pan. But it did it's job. And I'd written up incident reports for cars rolled down the chute at Summit, into 1 at the Glen, and others.

No substitute for safety equipment.

This is an excellent topic and one that I constantly think about for my own car. I believe it's really a matter of personal choice. For myself, I decided it was more important to be anchored into the car and now have much movement in the seat as opposed to having any rollover protection. European cars have so much safety built into them from the factory, even 20 yr old & older cars, that I focused my recources on harnesses and harness bar. My rational being that since I only DE my car, the risks that I am taking are lower than that if I were competing. Like I said, it's really a matter of personal choice and there really is no wrong answer on the subject.

And to take the subject further, the driver and his actions have a HUGE effect on the results when incidents happen. Sure, sometimes it all goes wrong, and a component breaks. And sometimes there is nothing you can do. But those situations are rare, and it's far more common that the driver has some control, and can minimize the outcome.

I've watched drivers go off track and turn aggressively to get back on course...and land on the roof. Driver error.

I've watched drivers spin and flop around in front of traffic taking out multiple cars, and they did it after being off course and out of the way. Driver error.

Things like that are avoidable, (simply by easing any steering into the car in the first case. or putting both feet in in the second ) and "what do i do when it goes wrong" is a lesson that should be taught and understood as soon as possible. Sometimes I fear that as instructors we don't cover that topic enough, as it will "scare off" newbies. Some groups do a better job than others in that department.

Bottom line is that as drivers, we must know how to handle spins, when to put two feet in, the surroundings of the track, where there is room, where it's soft, what the traffic is around us, and have situational awareness at all times. We must pre think what to do in certain situations so that when it happens, we act from a thought out plan, rather than panic or make incorrect assumptions.

I've been in lots of situations where I thought I was doomed, but wriggled out of it because I took the time to pre think scenarios, or I paid attention to the track surroundings on warm up and cool off laps, or I knew what traffic was behind me, or I felt a vibration or a coarseness in the steering that signaled a loose bearing, or I knew it was time to just suck it up and put two feet in..

Regarding the GT3 roll bar--I may be wrong can can check the documentation--I believe the cars are delivered to end users with their roll bars only partially assembled, with the front cross members removed. The end users, should they decide to, can install these themselves. To me, this sounds like a classic loophole to get around DOT regulations. From my limited understanding, this is similar to the reason some manufacturers make 2+2 cars (to get around prohibitive insurance costs), even though the rear seats are nearly impossible to use for normal sized people. Just an idea...not definite...not sourced...

I would very much like to put roll bars into my cars; however, insurance companies don't seem to like roll bars (mine doesn't) because, I guess, it implies track use and aggressive driving.

I think the business of 2+2s being built to circumvent insurance regulations is a myth. As far as I know, Insurance rates are based on a whole lot of things other than number of seats, and I can't imagine that an industry so sophisticated about demographics would say, "911 Turbo = safe because it has 2+2 seats, Miata = dangerous because it only has two." Having written about cars for 30+ years, I have yet to find a manufacturer that would admit, even off the record, that the plus-two seats had anything to do with insurance rates. Typically, they explain that the existence of "back seats," even if unusable, makes buyers think the car has more potential utility than it actually does.

The insurance rates for our two-seat Boxster and our five-seat Volvo station wagon are virtually identical, since the cars are worth about the same and are about the same age.

Urban legend. I've heard this since I was a kid. Thanks!

Reviving this post so I can close it out with what I decided on. Just read another post where you didn't find out what the person decided on - so here is what I decided on:

Safety Devices bolt-in bar with removable harness bar. Great fit and still have access to the back. Without the harness bar right behind the seats I feel much safer. Still need some padding on the upper portions though. Great product but a little more than I wanted to spend. $1k for the bar, and another $1k to install. Not a true bolt in though as bolt in plates needed to be welded in. $$

Still plan on track seats and harness for DEs - need to let the bank account recover some.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1277082508.jpg

The most important thing is getting a well built system, I have seen so much unsafe junk in cars it amazes me. I have even seen people on tv mounting seat belts wrong. If you are in doubht research it. And i have seen rollbars that were not even good for a trycycle. There are al kinds of people building cages and roll bars, and have no clue what they are doing. I kept on a freind about how his over the shoulder belts were mounted wrong he has had a couple wrecks and know he has had a few disk fused, was it because the belts were mounted wrong? Anyway properly installed system in a car is great. your neighbor that welds gas pipe is not a good candidate to put your system/cage in. Kevin