Helmets

Head to steering wheel is a benefit of full face helmets. Or rather, protection from that impact, should it happen.

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Dazed_Driver
Head to steering wheel is a benefit of full face helmets. Or rather, protection from that impact, should it happen.

Seated in my car with the head and neck restraint and 5 points on my head won't be able to hit the steering wheel. I sit pretty damn close to the wheel too. I prefer an open face helmet anyway so if it does happen it's no big deal for me.

Yeah, I think I'm with you there Dan, I'm not sure how feasible it actually would be. The belts would have to stretch a LOT (perhaps if they're older and looped around the rear of the cage?) and you would need to be close, and the wheel up high, etc.

Either way, it's just something that I could see the FF being a benefit for. I suppose if a belt broke, as well. It's not common from my understanding, but its not impossible.

It comes down to the lesser of the two dangers.
Are the risk of hitting the steering wheel, and the probable injuries sustained, higher or lower than the risks associated with diminished access to your airway?

Well, to open an airway you must tilt the head back. In a seated position with a HNR and helmet on, I would imagine even tilting a head back would be very difficult, full face or not.

Maybe it's a toss up? Either way, having a helmet on sucks for rescuers, period. And being inside of a rally car behind the cage doesn't exactly make it easier, either.

3 miles into my first rally I crashed avoiding a car that had crashed into a tree and was blocking the road. As we were first on scene I immediately began 1st aid. Fairly large laceration on drivers forehead from hitting the steering wheel. The broken back, multiple broken ankles (did I mention the codriver was standing holding the red cross on two broken ankles), and such were a bit more serious.

PS> Do not tie your skid plate into your roll cage. Make the rear mounts for the skid plate weaker so that if you do hit a tree head on the engine and transmission can slide under the car and not 27" backwards and into passenger compartment. I like how in the one freak accident I've heard of where the door X broke and impaled a leg (would have bled out likely if not already dead from internal injuries) has resulted in many many cages getting bent V cage designs, yet things learned from other accidents that are much more likely to happen and prevalant on many cars don't seem to become shared.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2011 08:53PM by NoCoast.

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fliz
Hmm...I should send an email to RA and find out. My current Peltor is BSI, but I believe the G78 is FIA 8860-2004.

The G77, G78, and G90 are all BSI 6658-1985:

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/7C749233ED52C6ECC12578640059DFE5/$FILE/L41_FHR_compatible_helmets.pdf


The FIA is set to "expire" those at the end of next year (12/31/2012):

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/7FE78C3E570102ABC125785B002F8733/$FILE/L25_standards_for_helmets.pdf


The rumors I have been hearing are that Peltor (3M) is discontinuing their racing helmet line entirely.

Keith, if you could PM me info on where you heard about a possible ban on closed-face helmets in closed-cockpit cars, I'd appreciate it. I usually follow this stuff pretty closely and I've not heard anything along those lines.

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Morison
The down-side is that the same shell that protects you makes it more difficult to remove your body in the event of needing to provide medical assistance. Open Face helmets allow for unimpeded access to the airway without having to effect any other actions (such as cutting or removing the helmet.)

The odd thing (to me) is that the latest-and-greatest helmet bragged about in one of last year's FIA press releases is a Stilo open-face that has that fixed boom. That boom is designed neither to withstand the chin impact, nor to somehow break away quickly for airway access. So, by all the arguments put forth here, that new helmet is a worst-of-all-worlds design.

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NoCoast
Do not tie your skid plate into your roll cage. Make the rear mounts for the roll cage weaker so that if you do hit a tree head on the engine and transmission can slide under the car and not 27" backwards and into passenger compartment.

Um, what? I hope you meant "make the rear mounts for your skid plate weaker" or something along those lines. You don't want to the cage moving. Or at least you don't want part of the cage moving and another part not moving.

Doh. Typo. Meant skid plate.
Make the back mount of your skidplate able to fail if you punch something solid like a 18" diameter tree squarely in the center and it forces your engine backwards you want your rear skid plate mounts to fail so that the engine and tranny can follow the firewall and push underneath the car and not through the firewall.

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hoche

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fliz
Hmm...I should send an email to RA and find out. My current Peltor is BSI, but I believe the G78 is FIA 8860-2004.

The G77, G78, and G90 are all BSI 6658-1985:

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/7C749233ED52C6ECC12578640059DFE5/$FILE/L41_FHR_compatible_helmets.pdf


The FIA is set to "expire" those at the end of next year (12/31/2012):

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/7FE78C3E570102ABC125785B002F8733/$FILE/L25_standards_for_helmets.pdf


The rumors I have been hearing are that Peltor (3M) is discontinuing their racing helmet line entirely.

The link you posted, and what I saw says 2 years (12/31/2013).

Interesting that Peltor is getting out of the helmet business. Did they just lose too much market share to Stilo to make it worth reinventing their line?

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hoche
The rumors I have been hearing are that Peltor (3M) is discontinuing their racing helmet line entirely.

Even though they have (apparently) announced the G79 which is snell 2010 and FIA 8858-2010 approved?

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fliz

The link you posted, and what I saw says 2 years (12/31/2013).

Oops. Yeah. Misread that.

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fliz
Interesting that Peltor is getting out of the helmet business. Did they just lose too much market share to Stilo to make it worth reinventing their line?

Dunno. Was just a rumor. I don't think they ever made much from their racing stuff.

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Morison
Even though they have (apparently) announced the G79 which is snell 2010 and FIA 8858-2010 approved?

Ahhh, very good.

https://content.foreningshuset.se/KundMappar/9072/G79_data_sheet.pdf