Ha!

Good call, G, but not exactly what I was driving at. I'm not sure how you replicate the safest driver environment available - the F1/INDY cockpit - in a sedan, but I imagine some further improvements will be coming. An RSI carbon cockpit would be problematic, but they obviously work really well. I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

What I was getting at regarding the Recaro seat is its makeup. You have head fences (albeit minimal) but only shoulder wings. Fences I describe as parallel to the longitudinal axis of the chassis, where wings are at an angle. The fences are much more likely to stop movement of that which they are acting on, where the wings are much more likely to only deflect it in another direction. If you think about it, you realty want equal containment. If the head were to catch well, but the shoulders slide away, you've just CREATED neck tension where none stood to exist, at least in that manner.

In the mean time, the side net is the right solution. Regardless of whether you have an H&N or not, you still benefit from having something there when everything else fails. Even a great seat, a highly reliable H&N (which does not necessarily include the HANS), and the best belts cannot guarantee that.

I'll say again that a proper side net is the best thing that ever happended to a HANS!

 

I see your point with mid to upper torso containment, it makes sense. One point though for small drivers like me, 5'6" and 145 lbs using a Recaro Hans Pro. I sit so deep in the seat that I don't see how I could move laterally.

 

loosen your belts enough so you can pull yourself out about 10 inches or more. Even with tightly set belts body shape change and belt elongation introduce enough slop that you can move this far or more during an impact. With most seating systems this puts your shoulders and head out of the containment area. The more I read up the more I see that the 1 O clock hit is the bitch, net or not. Gently angles side bolsters don't look like they would do much to my fully untrained eye.

 

John Melvin had a safety presentation at the PRI show in December. He highly recommended a right-side net no matter what other safety equipment is in use. (for those that don't know of Melvin, he has extensive crash injury experience with General Motors, working with their combined racing safety program - now is a safety consultant).

The seat, harnesses, head & neck retraints all work together as part of the safety setup but a right-side net is a must.

 

This is why when it started using a HANS in late 2005 I also install a right side net. I also consider them to be pair that should be used together.

 

I am 5'7" and 160lbs so a little bigger than you. One thing I did when going to a HANS was to remove the lower aft seat pad in my sparco pro2000 seat. I did it to ger harness angle right with the HANS since my seat is alreay as low as I could go. What I noticed is that now I sit very deep in the seat so the side bolsters seem to work even better. Also since I left the front seat pad in my knees are up higher than my butt so it is somewhat like formula car in the relationship between the butt and legs. Clearly not as reclined (or even reclined at all since my seat back is rather straight), but that slight butt low seating seems to secure me in the seat more underbraking. I know one concern in harness set-up is pelvic control and that I believe this may help that slightly.

In the end I feel this lower seating helps keep me in seat better in crash than with the pad in. I feel it would take more belt strech to pop of the seat now than with the pad in. I don't believe it will save me from everything, but do think it helps.

 

Pffffff....

You know you can skip the modesty thing, cause you're spot on dead nuts perfect. A great idea for EVERYONE to do. There is only one time that you will be in a static seated position, and that is all the time before you hit something. After that... most people don't have any grasp of just how far they can potentially travel from that spot. When assessing your cockpit, you need to pay just as close attention to the potential remote locations as the static one.

If you are going to biff, the best thing you can do is hit something head on. As a driver, you should do everything humanly possible to maintain control to bring that about. Once you give up control, you are a passenger and will hit whatever way time and space chooses. If you have a good solid full containment seat, then you can, with a decent degree of confidence, look forward to good results if you hit dead flush broadside. The seat will keep you in, hopefully. Anywhere in between those two extremes, and a side net and a reliable H&N device are going to have a lot of work to do. How well you set all of them up to work together will govern how well they work for you in return.

 

is there a convenient mounting point in a mid-year 911 for the front strap?

 

For those interested there are a number of in car shots seen on the 24 telecast and so far I've seen two very different setups for the side net on the left side.

1. DP has them setup the same left and right
2. GT at least a couple of them have the left one set much higher.

Interesting to see the differences. I wonder what the reasons are.

 

It won't be long until we are fully enclosed in nerf cars and we can't see in any direction...

I wonder how many of these net devices will be causing more incidents than helping...gets pretty hard to see with all the nets cocooning the driver.

 

not sure they alter vision enough to 'cause an accident'. They still allow your periferal vision to see movement and I would much rather have one if you are in an accident

 

Excellent thread, great info.

 

Installed my net this weekend. Not sure exactly what kind of "collars" you are describing. I'd like to find something a bit better than hose-clamps (short of welding in tabs) to stabilize the strap mounting points so they don't slip.

 

I think he's referring to "split collars", as can be seen here: http://www.mcmaster.com/#split-collars/=r6wi8

 

Okay, should have searched first. I guess this is probably what you're talking about.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/products...l.ex?sku=34530