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Originally Posted by Russ Noble  The issue does not seem to have arisen as the result of any failures in over 800 builds to date. This indicates to me that the perceived problem is theoretical rather than actual. OK it may not be 'good engineering practice' but it apparently works. |
False logic. If a manufacturer mounts his seat belts to balsawood, and nobody ever crashes a car, there would be no failure. Does that make the practice 'work'? No. It is a REAL problem that has simply (by good fortune) not manifested itself in any death or injury.
Yet.
I don't (yet) own a GT40 replica, but I do have an eye for these sorts of issues. I don't have the credentials of being a professional auto engineer, but I am an extensively trained Air Force safety officer, to include in-depth training in aircraft mishap analysis, which has a very broad scope including material failure analysis, and consideration of design flaws which only come to light when there's a smoking hole in the ground.
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Originally Posted by Russ Noble It also appears to be accepted by the regulatory authorities so that's fine. |
Regulatory authorities vary widely from place to place; while OEM manufacturers have to meet very stringent standards, component car builders don't. Here in California, nobody looks at anything from a safety perspective, as far as I know.
When building a replica car, to the greatest degree possible I look to an OEM-caliber solution for a safety-related problem. I bought my Contemporary 427 Cobra used, and have subsequently modified it to vastly improve the seat belt mounting and seat mounting, as the original owner had these items just bolted directly to the fiberglass floor! I bolted flat steel bars to the chassis under the floor, and then mounted the seats and belts to those bars.
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Originally Posted by Russ Noble I know guys on here tend to go somewhat overboard with the specification and design of their cars, and that's not a bad thing but if anyone is concerned about their seat mounts Andy Green has posted a simple 'piece of mind' fix.
Since there is no actual problem, what's the problem?
If anyone does eventually experience problems with the standard setup Andys solution is a cheap and easy retrofit. QED |
With the proviso that 'experiencing' the problem might be a very nasty thing indeed. I would urge implementation of a known fix to a known design 'issue' before, rather than after that issue becomes a problem.