GT40 side impact protection

Ok, now back to the original topic. What solutions are there to pad the roll cage and do we have any numbers regarding side impact safety between different component cars?

Brisc
I have a rollover bar mounted on the engine side of the bulkhead which leaves me plenty of headroom in the cockpit. If you start padding an interior rollover bar you will limit headroom.

Good luck whatever you decide,
Bill
 
If you are not a GT 40 fan what are you doing here? If safety was the only consideration for our owning our toys we would all be driving Suburban size tricked out SUV's.
 
If you are not a GT 40 fan what are you doing here? If safety was the only consideration for our owning our toys we would all be driving Suburban size tricked out SUV's.

I am a huge GT 40 fan. I happen to be almost too tall for the original 40 though. The original 40s are great for the race track, but I would like to use it on the street quite extensively, and for that it needs to be scaled-up by 20%. Safety is certainly not the only consideration, but it is a consideration for sure!
 
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I am surprised to see the large number of conservative posts regarding safety for component cars on this forum. The attitude of some folks posting here is unbelievably degenerative. This is not the stuff that defines modern man, with all his hunger and desire for evolution and continuous improvement - the stuff that we can attribute all our life quality to. There is no reason at all why a component car cannot be safer than a production car and still have a more competitive price.


Interesting read:

Learn and talk about Side Impact Protection System, Automotive safety technologies, Volvo Cars

"The SIPS system worked by having the driver and passenger seat mounted on transverse steel rails, not bolted to the floor as per the standard configuration. In a side impact these transverse rails allowed the seats to crush a reinforced centre console during a side impact."
 
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Quote:
<table cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border:1px inset"> Originally Posted by Brisc
There is not much head room in a GT40 (I don't like the fact that the GT40 is so small at all. After having seen in a few in real life, I would only purchase one if there was a scaled-up replica version available)
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Then why are you on gt40s.com?

If you had properly read the section that you quoted me for you would have the answer!
 
Here is your information that I could find. The protection is either SFI 45.1 or FIA certified. The standards are in this article.

Technical Roll Cage Information | Safety Devices

I have a full 6 point cage in my 40 along with a 6 point harness.
P1010118.jpg


I put it in the car for several reasons. 1. I plan to track my car but not primarily. 2. I am 5-9 and 160 lbs. I chose a seat and frame(cage) configuration that would give me the most protection and would be installed so that my head cannot touch the padding in any circumstance. I don't wear a helmet on the street for the simple reason that a helmet without a Hans device is asking for a broken neck in any form of accident. Go to Utube and watch the rally cars that are "fails" and watch the in car camera footage. Pay particular attention to the head movement. You are adding 1-2 lbs to your head and that is almost, check that, it is, impossible to control in any type or shunt. Notice that most of those cars don't even have anti intrusion bars. Most of the accidents I have knowledge of for GT 40s have occured with the cars leaving the roadway not collisions with another car(track or street). Another reason to look at the Rally cars.
If you are so tall that you will contact the cage or padding, then you need to think twice about using it in a street car. Same goes if you think you will contact the roof line as well. The only way you will contact the roof in a wreck is with a roll over, and your deformity of the roof will be made by the asphalt meeting the roof surface and then, your head. I think with that scenario your outcome will be terrible. I'll temper that a bit because you can get sheets of padding that are designed to pad parts of your body other than your head. For the roof line I think the outcome would still be terrible.
It all boils down to your risk assessment when entering these vehicles.

Bill
 
Bill, thank you so much for this fantastic reply. The type of foam makes a lot of difference. Testing was done at 7 m/s which is about 25 km/h and they get 63g. At twice the speed (50 km/h) you have 4 times the energy. Assuming that the distance over which the deceleration occurs is roughly the same (foam thickness, first order), the deceleration will be 4 times higher (E=m*a*x) and the head impact on the roll cage even with foam can lead to a kill (without wearing a helmet, since we have 4*63g=240g). This highlights the controversy of the roll cage discussion: 1) using a helmet in combination with the roll cage; 2) not having a roll cage when not wearing a helmet.

The best solution, in my point of view, is to use a roll cage even without using a helmet, and increase the distances between the roll cage and the passenger, in other words, scale the car up by 20%.

ConforFoamDropShockTest-AND-GolfBallDropTest.gif
 
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I am a huge GT 40 fan. I happen to be almost too tall for the original 40 though. The original 40s are great for the race track, but I would like to use it on the street quite extensively, and for that it needs to be scaled-up by 20%. Safety is certainly not the only consideration, but it is a consideration for sure!

You want a 20% scaled up GT40? 114" wheelbase and 84" wide, you might as well call it a Stretch GT48......

Bill P
 
There is no reason at all why a component car cannot be safer than a production car[/QUOTE

Here are two BIG ones.....

Component car mfg's are not required to, nor do they have millions of dollars to crash test vehicles being a cottage industry.

I think you should build your version of the GT40 and crash test several, front, rear and both sides. Four will do initially but then you'll need to go back to the drawing board and test four more. Repeat until you or your "market" is satisfied.

Please keep us posted with your findings and tech.
 
You want a 20% scaled up GT40? 114" wheelbase and 84" wide, you might as well call it a Stretch GT48......

Bill P

Hi Bill, thanks for your reply.

I think the 20% scaled-up wheelbase of 114" wouldn't be extraordinary. The wheelbase of the 2014 Dodge Challenger is 116", the wheelbase of the Ferrari FF is 118".

The front and rear track of the GT40 is 57", the 20% scaled-up track would be 68" which is similar to the Lamborghini Aventador, which has 67".

The height would be a fantastic 48" with heaps of head room, fantastic comfort and increased safety. The passenger interior would allow for a roll cage without having to wear a helmet.

And the best part of the story: the shape would be exactly the same as the original, all relative dimensions would be the same, you could not tell the difference on a photograph and when next to another exotic modern sports car, the GT40 would dominate the view.

Here an image posted on the forum some time ago. The Ford GT is also roughly 15% larger than the original GT40 due to the previously discussed reasons. A scaled-up GT48 would certainly attract kit car enthusiasts that decide to purchase other kit cars at the moment.

attachment.php
 
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There is no reason at all why a component car cannot be safer than a production car[/QUOTE

Here are two BIG ones.....

Component car mfg's are not required to, nor do they have millions of dollars to crash test vehicles being a cottage industry.

I think you should build your version of the GT40 and crash test several, front, rear and both sides. Four will do initially but then you'll need to go back to the drawing board and test four more. Repeat until you or your "market" is satisfied.

Please keep us posted with your findings and tech.

The car industry does not crash test a lot of cars. 90% of all the crash testing is done in the computer using, for instance, LS dyna. That is one of the reasons why they can afford to run with ever decreasing numbers of engineers while employing more and more bean counters to increase profits. I have experienced enough to reinforce my statement that component cars can be safer than production cars. Rally cars are safer than their equivalent street versions, the main difference being integrated roll cages.

LSDYNA :: Finite Element Analysis Software :: Applications :: Crashworthiness

A determined cottage industry can do so without dramatically increasing the cost, in particular when using modern FEM tools. If you have a close look at the cost breakdown of the big players, you will be amazed how much of the purchase price is spent for marketing (race teams and advertisement) and how much profit is made from each car sale. Some manufacturers had years in the past where profits exceeded overall staff costs (including their CEO pays).

Scaling up the GT40 replicas by 20%, adding a proper roll cage (which then can be done since there is more than enough passenger room) and adding side intrusion bars in the doors will dramatically increase safety without any crash testing or FEM simulations. I think that this simple procedure will make the entire product so much safer, that crash testing or FEM simulations won't be required, while satisfying the market for a much safer (and better) GT40 replica. I would expect your market share in the component car and particular GT40 replica industry to increase significantly if you were to add the "GT48" to your sales list.
 
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I think you should build your version of the GT40 and crash test several, front, rear and both sides. Four will do initially but then you'll need to go back to the drawing board and test four more. Repeat until you or your "market" is satisfied

There is enough photographic material of past GT40 accidents that allow us to find answers as to how we can increase safety in future without a single additional crash test. Scaling-up the car by 20% is the next logical step to take in my point of view.
 

Fran Hall RCR

GT40s Sponsor
Sorry but I know for a fact that OEMs crash text masses of vehicles as well as doing simulated testing
Chrysler crashed 400 Dodge Ram trucks in their last round of validation.

A 20% larger gt40 would be ungainly and unappealing to many
The Ford GT is 12.6 % larger than a Mk1 and is plenty large enough with it's 106.7 inch wheelbase
Regardless of the cars size the door/roof design will make it nigh on impossible to make side impact and rollover strong enough
The reason the GT was not built longer was due to the fact that Ford knew it would not pass the changing criteria for 2007s USA rollover and front offset crash tests
The end of run cars were sold into Canada in 2007 as they implemented the updated tests 12 months later.
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
Why doesn't he just call you and order a GT-R Fran? Scaled up GT40 wala. I think the guy likes to hear himself talk really...
 

Dimi Terleckyj

Lifetime Supporter
Quite frankly guys IMHO

The GT40 is what it is and that is it's attraction.
If you are that concerned about safety the solution is simple, DON'T BUY, BUILD OR OWN ONE.

They were never meant to be the safest car in the world.

Dimi
 
Hi Fran,

The GT-R replica is really exciting and will hopefully drastically increase your market share in the component car industry.

What is the reason why Ford decided to leave the roof members out that we have discussed in post #8?

side_impact1.jpg


Here some images of the Ford GT chassis. Looks great, but I would be much happier if the previously discussed roof members would be included.

61-1.jpg


$T2eC16R,!%29EE9s2ugOs6BQffBy4yf!~~60_57.JPG


The doors extending over the roof look really awesome, but do you still need that for getting comfortably into the car with its increased size?

I suppose a potential buyer could always add these if they wanted, given that you can still get into the car.

Are there any examples in history where we have those roof members integrated into doors that extend over the roof? There would have to be some kind of mechanism that locks this additional roof member in place when closing the door.

Anyway, I am very excited to hear that there will be a Ford GT replica.
 
The doors extending over the roof look really awesome, but do you still need that for getting comfortably into the car with its increased size?

I suppose a potential buyer could always add these if they wanted, given that you can still get into the car.

Are there any examples in history where we have those roof members integrated into doors that extend over the roof? There would have to be some kind of mechanism that locks this additional roof member in place when closing the door.

Doors extending over the roof of a GT40 are essential for getting in AND getting out. Roof members integrated into the doors could be overly complicated and the locking arrangement could get damaged in an accident preventing exit which could be bad in the event of fire etc etc

Bill P
 
Doors extending over the roof of a GT40 are essential for getting in AND getting out. Roof members integrated into the doors could be overly complicated and the locking arrangement could get damaged in an accident preventing exit which could be bad in the event of fire etc etc

Bill P

Hi Bill, thanks for the post. I was wondering if the situation is any different with the larger GT (GT-R) replica. I just found this image, roll cage looks great, in particular that roof member we have discussed.

http://www.fordgtforum.com/forums/showthread.php/11506-Lime-Rock-July-12-Ford-GT-Results/page1

fordgtforum1.jpg
 
Regardless of the cars size the door/roof design will make it nigh on impossible to make side impact and rollover strong enough
The reason the GT was not built longer was due to the fact that Ford knew it would not pass the changing criteria for 2007s USA rollover and front offset crash tests
The end of run cars were sold into Canada in 2007 as they implemented the updated tests 12 months later.

That is very interesting. The sills of the Ford GT chassis are very narrow, since there are no fuel tanks. Do you think the side impact protection of the Ford GT chassis is worse than that of the GT40 replicas? A first look at the Ford GT chassis images would suggest that.
 
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