Does anyone know about the new rally side impact design with new rally seats taking 100g side impacts? Its under FIA homo# CS218.08 new for late 2008/ 2009 introduced at the Japan rally. Glimpses of the seat look like a beafed up racetech with head halo and 200mm of some kind of honeycomb foam between the doorskin and the rollcage doorbars. I have seen no clear pictures. Corvette racing C6 was using some kind of side impact aluminum honeycomb carbon fiber covered block to do something similar but the seat was generic at the time. Anyone have any pictures of this new rally set-up? Gbaker can you comment?

 

Apparently only Sparco have a seat that conforms at the moment, GB£6k apparently. Expect a conforming seat from Cobra soon too.

The new FIA spec is a departure from the dynamic testing and spec of the 1996(?) homologation. Much more rigid and works on the basis that the car/shell will absorb the energy of the impact, not the seat.

Autosport show in the UK this week so I'll find out what I can.

 

This has been in the works for some time, with most of the US development done by Hendricks. NASCAR will be testing soon.

Here is the best write up we've found re the FIA project:

http://www.fiainstitute.com/news/news_141108.php

Also, I had to miss the SAE Motorsports Engineering Conference this year, but heard that Andy made a presentation. If so it was probably on this subject.

[Edit: Just checked. Andy was on a safety panel, but did not publish on this subject.]