917 safety
Allan,
the factory never equipped the 917 with roll cages or a fire extinguishing system.
It was Ferdinand Piech (by then head of Porsche`s Racing Department) who made weight saving the prime directive above anything else. It is said that he was somehow obsessed by that.
The John Wyer team upon their own initiative equipped their 917s with a Graviner aircraft type extinguishing system.
Speaking of Porsche`s obsession for weight saving: Not only did they some experimenting with Beryllium discs and pistons, but also for the sake of sparing the weight of the fuel pumps they ran a 917 with its rubber fuel tanks encapsulated in a pressurised titanium bubble, the latter being etched down to a wall-thickness of only 5/100 millimeters.
Marcus
Allan,
the factory never equipped the 917 with roll cages or a fire extinguishing system.
It was Ferdinand Piech (by then head of Porsche`s Racing Department) who made weight saving the prime directive above anything else. It is said that he was somehow obsessed by that.
The John Wyer team upon their own initiative equipped their 917s with a Graviner aircraft type extinguishing system.
Speaking of Porsche`s obsession for weight saving: Not only did they some experimenting with Beryllium discs and pistons, but also for the sake of sparing the weight of the fuel pumps they ran a 917 with its rubber fuel tanks encapsulated in a pressurised titanium bubble, the latter being etched down to a wall-thickness of only 5/100 millimeters.
Marcus