Entry level suit and helmet/comm setup?

Any opinions on a good entry level suit? Along with a good helmet that's comm compatible out of the box? Looking to buy around Christmas time and just kind of getting the feelers out. My budget is probably gonna be around $4-500.

Hate to crap in the punch bowl, but don't forget the hanz devize...


I nabbed a sparco suit off Ebay, it was a great deal, but there are very reasonablely priced new suits out there these days.

Get the best helmet you can. Besides the obvious stuff (you only get one head) I found out the hard way that a helmet with the built in ear protection is well worth it. I started out with a bell and hot glued the comm stuff in there, and ended up not hearing the second part of "right 6 into left 2" and ended up in a big ditch.

On helmets, I tried to use the Bell Mag Rally Helmet after my Peltor's chin strap came apart and Peltor refused to repair it. It's a new-ish one with the headset in little bags i.e. built in intercom.

I could barely hear Jeff at Shannonville, the intercom has no noise detection and the headset bags muffle the sound. I was lucky it was basically a track event. If it was a normal forest rally, I would have been screwed. I returned it and bought another Peltor (ugh).

So, as $$$ as it is, stick with Peltor or maybe Stilo for helmets. Be sure to get the newer FIA certified Peltors, not the BSI older ones. Not being able to hear each other on stage is 10x worse than anything else. If you're a co-driver in a quieter car, it may not be as bad but it's not worth the risk.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2013 10:21AM by AlexeiS.

Bear in mind that anything with some made up "it will turn into dust" expiration date you really want to get that UPSed to arrive moments before loading the car onto the trailer when you're leaving for first event..

Yeah yeah it Christmas coming..Car ready?
Wait till its closer then call it an Arbor Day present or Groundhog Day or Washlincoln's Birfdee


But I've know too many including me who had belts new in the box expire before first event.

Ask for "fresh dates" when ordering and check that it ain't 10-11 months old when it arrives.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

As much as "budget" stuff is that.. budget. You get what you pay for. I bought a GeForce suit and promptly returned it because it felt and fit like shit, same with GeForce Helmet. I then went and bought a Sparco Suit and Bell Helmet.

Make sure to get a Made in USA Bell helmet, don't get the cheapest ones as they are made in China and also shit. I had an issue where I tested the fit on the Bell China and Bell USA full face helmet in person at a local shop. Tried both on, both the same size and the China one didn't fit at all, my nose was touching the visor, let alone +/- a size didn't fit as well. So while getting a helmet online might seem like a good idea, you should really try on a helmet in person.

Same really goes for a suit.

Things to consider when trying on helmets:
- Do you change between short cut hair and growing it out? Having short or long hair can make a difference in the helmet fitting right or being uncomfortable/loose on your head. I would suggest trying on the helmet WITH a headsock as well. My Stilo is really tight in the forhead when I wear a headsock, with short hair so I don't wear it as much. If I have long hair the helmet starts to fit tight around the noggin and is slightly uncomfortable.

- As John said, get one with a SN2010 rating. There will be SN2005 models for dirt cheap, but it will be a helmet that will only last for 2 more years. The discounts are usually not as much to justify how few years you'll get out of it. Why spend $300 on a 2 year helmet or spend $450 and get a 7 year helmet. At that rate, you're paying $150 a year as opposed to $65 a year.

- Integrated electronics (Peltor/Stilo) are FAR better than retrofitting them into an old helmet. If you have to go the retrofit route, get Peltor or Stilo parts. Terratrips are mediocre at best and again, you get what you pay for. The ear cups themselves help reduce car noise and save your hearing for the weekend. Peltor/Stilo intercoms have better noise canceling for engine drone.
- Be careful of full face retro-fit electronics. I originally took my Bell full face and put in the Peltor kit. It was ok, but the headphones keep falling out no matter how good you velcro/glue them in. The microphone in the rear (at your mouth) also had issues getting enough volume to the front mic (away from your mout) and the noise canceling wasn't working that well. Most mics have a forward and reverse mic to aid in noise canceling and the front facing mic was muffled by the helmet (i.e. not designed for the helmet being installed in) and it more or less amplified all the gravel spray and engine noise.


Things to consider on suits:
- You can go cheap and get a single/double layer suit that will require you to wear underwear. It's kind of nice because you can have several pairs of underwear that you change out and that gets all nasty/sweaty and your suit won't stink as bad (hint, it will still smell bad). However, 3 layer suits are thinner overall so on hot days you'll actually have less layers and stay cooler.

- Like a helmet, go to a place you can try them on. Most suits are "fat american" designed so you'll have excess fabric in the crotch/gut area that makes putting on belts a pain in the ass if you don't have a guy to fill the suit. If you're buying one online, I would go for a side that fits your chest/arms/crotch and don't worry about the pant length if it's too short and just get some nomex socks to cover your ankles.

- You want your upper body and waist to fit very well and have good freedom but the leg length doesn't matter as much.

- If you're between sizes always go one up in size. Find a company that has multiple sizes and not just a small/medium/large/XL/XXL/XXXL. Stuff like Sparco and Alpinestars have numeric sizing that range from 40-60 so you can get a better fitting suit that way. There are still some good "budget" sparco suits that I would get.

http://www.saferacer.com/sparco-jade-racing-suit is a good example. Personally, I have not worn one of these, but the guy I sold my VW to got this suit and he said it fit him well with no issues. However, it's got s/m/l/etc sizing and not the numeric so you will have a harder time figuring out a correct size.

Hope that helps?

At $270, a decent starter suit is the Sparco Jade.
One of the best quality yet lowest priced helmet with buiilt in electronics is the Bell Mag-1 Rally at $459.95.
To come in lower with a helmet w/intercom you may need to do it yourself by getting a cheap helmet and adding intercom electronics from Stilo or Peltor.
As for Hans devices, the least expensive is the Sport II at $635. You can save $40 ($595) if you have your own helmet post anchors.
If you place a large enough order you will get a 10% discount along with free shipping.
Bryan
Rocky Mountain Autosports, Inc.

We've never had any problems with an inexpensive intercom retrofitted into our closed face Bell helmets; think it was a Terracom for open face helmets. We just modifed the side pads to hold in the earpieces so that the earpieces set right by the ears with no glue or velcro; put thin cloth over the earpieces on one. Never fell out in I dunno how many events. Plenty of excess volume and good quality, no failures, and the only noise was when we modified the battery switch arrangement to put it in the ground side.

Glued the boom mic pods with double sided sticky tape on the outside and just routed the little flexi-boom under the edge and inside. The mics have a noise cancellation port on the back side; if you point it backwards, then it will be very noisy, closed or open face. The closed face 'chin hoop' portion helps keep some of the noise out.

SO, IMO, a lot of it depends on how you do it, and it can be done well with more inexpeneive equipment

I've heard lots of good things about the G-Force 545 suit. Looks like, if you're ready to buy now and can stand the color, they're closing out some at a pretty screamin' deal - http://www.ebay.com/itm/G-FORCE-Racing-Gear-SFI-3-2a-5-545-Nomex-driving-suit-semi-gloss-yellow-1pc-/171001200444?pt=Apparel_Merchandise&var=&vxp=mtr&hash=item6d7c5cc21b

(Just don't buy 'em all up before I get mine! )

---

KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

Just a thought...

At the end of the year there will be a bunch of Peltor helmets with expired certs. You might be able to pick one up for a very reasonable price and use the intercom equipment out of it.

Hey thanks all for the input....

I plan on renting a Hanz device for my first rally. As far as my deadline is looking, Ojibwe will be my first run on stage. I can pay the $120 or whatever it is and rent one from Davenport.

Alexei, with your Bell, was there anyway to upgrade the headsets? After RMA posted up the gear they have, that helmet may be the ticket, I don't know..... Maybe I'll just borrow buddies helmets for a couple RX/drift events and save up for a nice helmet.

Any input on suit sizes? I'm 6ft, lanky at 160lbs.

Thanks again for the insight guys! You've been a ton of help! Oh and Aaron. Yeah not sure if I could pull off the yellow suit haha!

At 6ft 160lbs I would go with a size 58 in Sparco and OMP. Might want a 60 in Alpinestars as they are slightly longer in the legs and shorter in the torso than the other two. Puma 60 would work and has more room in caboose, pricey but worth it. And if it doesn't fit, just return it for a different size for no added charge.
We will have a couple of lightly used Sport I Hans devices (from our rally team) coming up for sale this month once they are recertified. Cost will be around $359.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2013 07:36PM by rocky mountain autosports.

Quote
deaner
Alexei, with your Bell, was there anyway to upgrade the headsets? After RMA posted up the gear they have, that helmet may be the ticket, I don't know..... Maybe I'll just borrow buddies helmets for a couple RX/drift events and save up for a nice helmet.

The best thing to do is always try it out. A helmet is not only fit, but the intercom quality too. That's a bit tougher to test, you need to be in a rally car with a co-driver to test. The best thing to try and do is borrow helmets at a RallyX like you mentioned to try them out. And like others say, test with a balaclava if you can. It makes a slight difference.

As far as I could see with the Bell Mag, I don't know if there would be an easy way to replace the intercom system. The bags were fairly square/tight. I'm sure someone could make it work, but when I'm on stage the last thing I want to think about is whether I can hear my co-driver properly.

I did have a rally bud, Mark Biernacki, who did retrofit an earlier Bell helmet with Peltor internals, and he liked it quite a bit. I co-drove for him once and he didn't have any problems hearing me. That's not the Mag version (why pay for intercom if you're just going to throw it out?) but FYI.

Quote
alkun
Just a thought...

At the end of the year there will be a bunch of Peltor helmets with expired certs. You might be able to pick one up for a very reasonable price and use the intercom equipment out of it.

Which I have been wondering for a while. Does anyone have any first hand experience of a succesful swap that is comfortable? I have my older peltor, I love the audio quality of it (after using stilos and terratrips) and want to keep it. But I also don't want to end up with a second set of intercoms obviously. So does anyone know of a helmet that meets the new specs while being retrofitable with a Peltor cup system?

The ear-cups would be the hardest part to transfer if the helmet isn't equipped with them already. Getting a helmet with earcups for rally is probably the best damn thing you can do. Trust me, your ears will thank you after events if you have a loud car but the biggest part is filtering out all the shitty gravel noise.

We have both Peltor and Stilo helmets on our shelves. If you look at the Peltor helmet shell you notice right away that the ear areas extend out from the rest of the shell. When we removed an earmuff cups, you see that the ear cups are deep to fit into the protruding ear portion of the Peltor Helmet shell. Looking at the Stilo earmuff cups they are relatively thinner than the Peltor cups since Stilo helmets do not have the ear protrusion of the Peltor. I suspect that is why Stilo is able to offer their electronics kits with both earbuds and earmuffs. Peltor only offers earbud speakers in their kits. The kit that includes Peltor earmuff cups are only for replacing electronics in a Peltor helmet.
So I would doubt you could place electronics out of an old Peltor helmet into any other helmet other than a Peltor helmet unless quite a bit of modifications were made to the Peltor earmuff cups. You do not want to mess with the interior of the helmet. That may create issues with the integrity and safety of the helmet.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2013 04:04PM by rocky mountain autosports.