Improving Safety on the S30?

[Challenger]

If you are truely worried about electrical fires then install a battery disconnect. Cause an electrical fire is just going to keep restarting until the power is removed or exhausted. I know that one first hand.

 

If you turn the power off once the fires started the fires wont go out. Removing to ignition source from the fire doesnt put it out.

 

So if theyres a small fire under your car youd let it burn your car cause you dont want to take the risk to put it out?

[JMortensen]

You know it is probably a pretty good idea to carry a cub scout knife and some water proof matches just in case your car goes off the road and gets trapped in some brush where no one can see you. It does happen. I read about it from time to time. You know, the whole "be prepared" thing.

 

See my point?

 

If you are truely worried about electrical fires then install a battery disconnect. Cause an electrical fire is just going to keep restarting until the power is removed or exhausted. I know that one first hand.

 

And no, even a burning vehicle does not NEED an extinquisher. What it needs from a purely safety stand point is for everyone to get out and stay away.

Uh... I carry an emergency kit in my truck. I don't have a roll bar in the truck, but the emergency kit is there, with the water proof matches, some water, one of those tin foil looking blankets and some food. Also I usually carry a pocket knife.

 

Seems like you're taking this whole thing awfully personal there Pop. No need to get your panties jammed up over this thread. I think we've stated that the guy's intent is very risky at best, foolish and potentially deadly at worst. I don't know what more you're after.

 

I still don't think that a fire extinguisher in a 35 year old car which is not known for the greatest wiring is beyond the pale nor do I think carrying one is instilling a false sense of security.

 

The roll bar is what it is. You're asking for proof of how a roll bar increases safety. I can only say that I saw my buddies 510 after he got T boned and it was ugly, but I really think he would be dead were it not for that roll bar. The Z is built fairly similarly, except it doesn't have a B pillar. Granted, in that particular accident the guy hit him DIRECTLY in the roll bar. I expect that if he was hit in front of the bar the results would have been a little different. Regardless, if you're not convinced by anecdotal evidence such as this then I think you're not going to be convinced, as nobody in their right mind is going to take the time to prove it to you with a comprehensive crash test study. Absence of proof is not proof of absence though, and I don't logically see how anyone could expect a stock Z to take a side impact better WITHOUT a roll bar than with one. Nor do I understand how the Z would fare better in a rollover without a roll bar than with one. If you have a logical argument to make against those statements, let's have it. If not, then we're getting nowhere mighty fast. I suppose I could sarcastically ask that you prove that it ISN'T safer, but that doesn't get us anywhere...

 

Again on the roll CAGE argument. I know I've made the argument that it is more dangerous on the street numerous times, and I've done it without the aid of any expensive studies too. But when I sit in a car and can swing my head to one side and it hits a steel tube, I don't need a thorough experiment to tell me that my head could hit that tube if I was in an accident, nor do I need too much convincing to conclude that hitting a small diameter tube with my head is going to be worse for my skull than hitting a relatively flat piece of sheet metal. Maybe you think I'm wrong. Fine, but if you want to discuss it any further you'll have to come up with an argument as to why, or else I am again forced to sarcastically ask you to take your own advice and prove that it is safer. Again, not productive and I don't want to go down that road...

 

A lot of what we discuss here is not "FACT", by a strict definition. That doesn't mean that it is not true. Requiring an unreasonably high level of "proof" in order to concede a point doesn't get any of us any closer to the truth.

[Armand]

Pop, I understand what your saying. But I want to make something clear, I am definitely not going to be driving more aggresively just because I have a roll bar/fire extinguisher/harness's. That's just DUMB. Second of all, I don't drive fast in the streets. I never speed, and I never do anything with cars around. Here and there I will take some freeway exits a bit fast or some turns here and there, but when I do, I make sure as hell that there is no cars around me. When I do 'spirited' driving its always by myself and definitely with no passenger. That's just plain stupid and irresponsible.

 

I know Im going to be stupid, Im young. Yes its probably even worse when I say this and I still do the things, but I truly try to be as safe as possible. The people you need to be worrying about is not me, its the stupid kids my age that only drive on the streets, and have no clue about how to control a car going 60-70mph on the 35mph streets. I always hear stories in my school of my classmates going 60mph on very busy streets which are cop-infested. When I do hear these stories I feel like slapping them for their stupidity. My stupid classmates always come up to me and ask me, "ohh dude teach me how to drift, you know everything about cars." They actually tell me that they think the drifiting in Tokyo Drift the movie is sick and they want to be able to do that. Whats even worse is they actually want me to go in their car, and go into residential streets where there aren't cars, and teach them. They have no idea how hard drifting is or the insane amounts of control you need to have in order to do it. And they just try it by themselves without reading any books are doing any research! They think you just go into a turn and turn the wheel and floor it. THOSE are the kids we all need to be worried about.

 

I think we can all agree that Im trying to handle this situation as maturly as possible and with as much acknowledgement of my surroundings. Pop, Im not directing any of this to you, nor am I saying what you said is directed towards me.

[TheNeedForZ]

Pop N Wood,

 

To each his own I guess. If you don't want to carry an extinguisher on your car, I am not forcing it on you. You know I respect your ideas but I can't accept them all.

 

Let's get back to topic before the thread heads for the blender...

[Pop N Wood]

Uh... I carry an emergency kit in my truck. I don't have a roll bar in the truck, but the emergency kit is there, with the water proof matches, some water, one of those tin foil looking blankets and some food. Also I usually carry a pocket knife.

 

That's too funny. Not the fact you carry one, just the timing of the comment.

 

But the point is you need to asses the risk first before you can begin to determine what is needed.

 

A lot of what we discuss here is not "FACT", by a strict definition. That doesn't mean that it is not true. Requiring an unreasonably high level of "proof" in order to concede a point doesn't get any of us any closer to the truth.

 

THIS is part of the point I am trying to make. I don't think it is an unreasonable level of proof to ask Armand to actually challenge some of these contentions rather than simply adding them to his list. Sorry Armand, not picking you out personally.

 

And I am certain not asking anyone for an unreasonable level of proof. In fact, the only proof I asked of anyone was to back up their own statements. I would honestly like to see the data.

 

One question for you guys, why is it everyone gravitates towards a roll bar when in my mind the biggest risk in the early Z's is the lack of door beams? The doors on my 240 seem like they weight about 10 pounds. I think if you threw a hammer hard enough you could smack the drivers knee right through the door. Is everybody REALLY so worried about getting crushed in a roll over, or is it just because a roll bar is so easy to install then why not do it? So by the same logic, you must NEED a roll bar in a Z to make it safe.

 

Armand said he is going to install an Autopower bar. I assume that is the one that bolts to the wheel wells. Hard to believe that is going to do much in a side impact collision.

 

Pulling my panties out of my ass for a moment I will say that I get a little obsessed with societies approach to auto safety. There are so damn many stupid laws in this country in a large part because people don’t stand up and say enough of this. Use a little common sense. Air bags are in cars only because too many people are too stupid to wear safety belts. Passive restraint. Now everybody thinks our old Z’s are death traps cause they don’t have half a dozen pyrotechnic devices surrounding the driver. Is it really worth adding a few thousand dollars to the price of every vehicle made just because there are people in the shallow end of the gene pool who refuse to use the most effective safety device put in a car? Why is society always geared toward protecting the lowest common denominator?

 

Yeah, Z’s are 30 year old, light weight sports cars. They don’t have the safety engineering of a modern Volvo C70. But that doesn’t make them unsafe and it doesn’t mean you need to start welding ♥♥♥♥ all over the vehicle just cause it seems like a good idea.

[jt1]

What's the big deal here?

 

There are an infinite number of ways to have an accident. In some instances a certain piece of safety equipment might help, it might have no effect, or it could make things worse. There is no way to predict what might happen. Period.

 

So keep your car in good condition, especially the tires, brakes, and lighting, be alert and aware, and drive defensively. If a piece of safety equipment makes you feel better, use it. It may help, or not, but it's there.

 

John

[JMortensen]

One question for you guys, why is it everyone gravitates towards a roll bar when in my mind the biggest risk in the early Z's is the lack of door beams? The doors on my 240 seem like they weight about 10 pounds. I think if you threw a hammer hard enough you could smack the drivers knee right through the door. Is everybody REALLY so worried about getting crushed in a roll over, or is it just because a roll bar is so easy to install then why not do it? So by the same logic, you must NEED a roll bar in a Z to make it safe.

I agree with your basic point about not needing as much safety equipment if you just use the seatbelt and pay attention while driving, and if I had a purely street driven Z, it wouldn't have all the extra crap in it. The issue here is the guy is specifically stating his intent to haul ass through canyons. If you had ACTUALLY ROLLED a car in those same canyons as I have, you might understand why a roll bar makes the list.

Armand said he is going to install an Autopower bar. I assume that is the one that bolts to the wheel wells. Hard to believe that is going to do much in a side impact collision.

I think you're wrong on that one. I know there are a lot of people who think it's useless because it mounts to the wheel wells, but I just plain 'ol disagree with that. As mom'sz has repeatedly stated, the wheel wells are structural in the Z, and they tie all that structure together in our cars, the rockers, the door jambs, the strut towers, the torque box (storage compartments). All that stuff is tied together by the wheel wells. Also anecdotally, have you heard John Coffey's story about Hiten Patel going end over end 4 or 5 times and walking away? He was driving a car with an Autopower roll bar (not cage) in it.

[johnc]

Do you have anything about helmets in a car too? Cause there are a number of people who have said it is flat out unsafe to drive a roll bar equiped car without a helmet and full harness. I would love to see soemthing to back up or disprove that statement.

 

Jeeps. They've had DOT approved roll bars and in some cases roll cages installed for years. The design and installation is such that, for the 90th percentile driver, there is little change of head impact on the bars.

 

From the roll bar (not cage) installations I have done and from the design of the Autopower roll bar there appears to be little chance of head impact on the roll bar if installed with a modern automotive or race seat and shoulder belts or racing harnesses. Anecdotal evidence from four accidents I've gathered information on tends to support this.

 

An additional data point I have is from the 24 Hours of LeMons competitors who raced a 1982 Toyoya Corolla with a full cage that I built. They were in numerous accidents over the race period at speeds from 20 to 40mph and at no time did their helmets touch the roll cage. They did have a race seat and a 6 point race harness in the car and all drivers were under 6' tall. One driver in particular (Sean) had a helmet with a $1,000 paint job on it and he was particularly worried aobut it. No damage.

[johnc]

Also anecdotally, have you heard John Coffey's story about Hiten Patel going end over end 4 or 5 times and walking away?

 

That was a front impact at over 80 mph into a dirt berm at LVMS. The roof of the car and the roll bar did crush down about 3" and his helmet was damaged, but he walked away. The roll bar took at least 3 impacts as the car flipped end over end and there was a race seat and a 5 point racing harness installed.

[TheNeedForZ]

And I am certain not asking anyone for an unreasonable level of proof. In fact, the only proof I asked of anyone was to back up their own statements. I would honestly like to see the data.

 

Maybe you should back up your statements too. The whole "having no extinguisher is safer than having an extinguisher" notion. But we already know that your out of support on that one.

 

The guy just want to make his car "safer" (not "deathproof"). You were saying something about "the most danger comes from yourself", "false sense of security" ,"I doubt A will work", "I'd like to see the proof on the effectiveness of B", "if you mess up, A,B,C can be used against you in court"....plus some more arguments.

 

C'mon....stop giving lectures and start giving answers.

[TheNeedForZ]

One note that will help improve the safety in almost any vehicles : Don't let heavy objects lay around loosely in the cabin. When crash happens, they can be thrown toward people.

 

When a car travels at 70MPH, the ball-peen hammer inside the car travels at the same speed. If the car comes to a sudden stop(crash), the hammer keeps going forward at 70 mph, imagine the damage a 70mph hammer can do to someone.

[Pop N Wood]

Maybe I am obsessing a bit too much on this one. I seem to be getting people pissed off.

 

But one last go around to try and get some useful information.

 

Jon, you were talking side impact. I didn't have anything to say about what the autopower bar will do in a roll over. But something tells me that those sheet metal anchors mounted that far up on the chassis won't be too effective at countering the shear forces of a side impact. Admitted speculation on my part, but probably the wrong bar for the intended application. I would be willing to bet your 510 buddy would agree.

 

And TheNeedForZ, may be you should quote my entire statement. I guess the "One could argue..." catch phase went unnoticed. Probably my fault. I am not being clear

 

What I am saying is the risk of personal injury from not having an extinguisher immediately within the reach of a belted driver on a street driven Z is so low as to not be worth worrying about. I can’t believe I am out of support on that one since in my experience the overwhelming majority of people I know don’t carry one at the ready, so to speak.

 

And as for roll bars in a street driven Z. What I don’t understand is what do you guys know about Z’s being so structurally defective that you feel a street driven vehicle needs a roll bar? Does anyone on here have information showing a Z car is so much weaker than your basic Taurus or Corolla as to be unsafe? Or do you guys feel the Taurus needs a roll bar too?

 

I am talking street cars here, not track vehicles.

 

I can see wanting one. They seem like they would be useful for chassis stiffening on a dual use street-track car. But as for the question of need in terms of safety….. You have to have a reasonable estimate of the risk before you can assign need.

 

There is a lot of information floating around right now about roof crush ratios and roll over protection as a result of Ford’s recent lawsuits regarding the Explorer. Does anyone know what the crush ratio of a Z car is? How does it compare to other vehicles? Anyone have an old shell they are willing to do some destructive testing on?

 

You guys also realize just how low the risk of a roll over is on a street driven vehicle is? Less than 4% of all accidents. The injury rate is kind of high for roll overs. One document said 26% of the people in a roll over will sustain a serious injury. Still, on a gross average that means take the probability of getting in an accident in the first place and divide that by 100.

 

I wonder what happens to that number if you subtract the number of injuries sustained by people not wearing seat belts. Cause I don’t know about you guys but it seems like every time I read about a bunch of kids getting injured in a roll over wreck it is always the one who wasn’t properly restrained that gets it. Then there is the whole top heavy SUV vs. low center of gravity sports car thing. Seems like all we have to do is drive in a safe manner and we should be much safer in our Z’s than a Ford Explorer.

 

Maybe a bad example.

[Austin240Z]

First off, I'm not trying to be a dick, just explain a point.

 

 

 

One question for you guys, why is it everyone gravitates towards a roll bar when in my mind the biggest risk in the early Z's is the lack of door beams? The doors on my 240 seem like they weight about 10 pounds. I think if you threw a hammer hard enough you could smack the drivers knee right through the door. Is everybody REALLY so worried about getting crushed in a roll over, or is it just because a roll bar is so easy to install then why not do it? So by the same logic, you must NEED a roll bar in a Z to make it safe.

 

Armand said he is going to install an Autopower bar. I assume that is the one that bolts to the wheel wells. Hard to believe that is going to do much in a side impact collision.

It's not entirely the "roll over" thing that has everyone putting in cages. There are two main things that have me interested in one. Reason one, look at this picture:

 

In a side impact, where do you get hit? sometimes the very front... sometimes the very back... but where I worry about the most is right square in the middle. when you get hit in the middle, you have 3 main areas you could be hit. Area one, near the firewall. It's pretty bad, but you have the firewall as well as the structural support near the battery tray thay atleast protects you some. Second area, the middle of the door, look at this picture, he got hit more or less in the middle of both areas. Not much protection there... And area Three, the back edge of the door and the rear quarter right behind the door. Again, not much more than door there to protect you, and the rear quarter doesnt offer a whole lot of extra protection. The wheel well is a structural point that will help some, but in my personal opinion, having that extra half cage there will atleast help the car from flexing more than having nothing there. A cage not only protects you in a rollover, but it helps keep most(half cage) or all(full cage) of the cabin a lot more rigid than no cage at all, that's why it helps in a roll over. It also helps on side impact. You dont seem to think that it would have much effect, but why do you think that on a ful cage, a good one mind you, they have a bar that goes parallel to the door? For SIDE impacts.

 

The other reason I will probably buy a half cage is this: My shoulder belt on my 240Z SUCKS, just sitting in the car without going anywhere, i have to adjust it to where i cant move. If I can move the shoulder belt usually unhooks. I would really like a half cage, or even just a single cross bar so that I can put in a decent 4 point harness. I would much rather be secure in my seat than have to worry "Is this that one time my seat belt comes un hooked?" because as much as I love my car, I really dont want to be un intentionally french kissing my steering wheel if i wind up in a front end collision.

 

Armand said he is going to install an Autopower bar. I assume that is the one that bolts to the wheel wells. Hard to believe that is going to do much in a side impact collision.

A unibody car gains it's rigitity and structural integrity from pretty much the ENTIRE BODY(with the exception of a few places) You'd be surprised what parts of the Z are actually extremely important structual points, and it just so happens that the wheel wells are some of those points.

 

Use a little common sense. Air bags are in cars only because too many people are too stupid to wear safety belts.

Sorry to be an ass, but if you are NOT wearing a seat belt, an air bag has a much greater chance of KILLING YOU. Air bags are an ADDITION to your restraint system I.E. Seatbelt. They're designed to cushion you when you are in a high speed impact, controlling how much you move upon impact to keep mainly your head, but also you arms to a small extent, from flailing around excessively. A seatbelt only holds your torso and does not restrain your head in any way, and thus the need for an air bag.

 

Yeah, Z’s are 30 year old, light weight sports cars. They don’t have the safety engineering of a modern Volvo C70. But that doesn’t make them unsafe and it doesn’t mean you need to start welding ♥♥♥♥ all over the vehicle just cause it seems like a good idea.

I do agree with you. I'm not taking my car to the track, i dont need to weld in a full cage. And yes, welding all willy nilly isnt going to get you anywhere, unless you're trying to create some sort of car art. Research is important, and if you want to weld in a cage... dont go buy some cheap generic cage... because it probably isnt worth more than the $100 you paid for it. Find an SCCA legal half cage, or something to that effect.

 

 

What I am saying is the risk of personal injury from not having an extinguisher immediately within the reach of a belted driver on a street driven Z is so low as to not be worth worrying about. I can’t believe I am out of support on that one since in my experience the overwhelming majority of people I know don’t carry one at the ready, so to speak.

 

Here's my deal with fire extinguishers. I had one in my Daily Driver SUV for years. I never needed it. BUT if for what ever reason, maybe something shorts out in my dash or center console... and it's a small fire, i may be able to put it out pretty quick, yeah, I have a big scorch mark, and i need an electrition... but it can probably be fixed. If i just let a little bitty fire sit, and i get out of the car to let it "burn itself out" whether you cut the battery power or not, theres carpet, plastic, and plenty of other fuel sources, and it probably wont "burn it self out" untill it's burned everything to the point where there's only smoldering metal heap where your car was.

 

I'm not stupid, if i cant put the fire out quick, I'd drop the extinguisher and get the f*** out of the car before it gets worse. That's comon sense, but a fire doesnt start huge, you have a good chance of putting it out if you're quick... if you're not quick, yeah, get out, call 911...... and your insurance company....

 

But my Z on the otherhand... has caught on fire before. there are burn holes in my old fuse box... plenty of them.. one of the first things i did was switch over to the MSA Blade style fuse box. and I will almost definately be carrying a fire extinguisher. With a new car, if it burns down, your insurance will probably get you a brand new identical one(if you're insurance is that good) but I dont think my insurance is going to hand build a new Z for me if mine burns down, and they probably wont give me nearly enough to go buy one that's in half as good of shape as mine is.

 

 

 

You guys also realize just how low the risk of a roll over is on a street driven vehicle is? Less than 4% of all accidents. The injury rate is kind of high for roll overs. One document said 26% of the people in a roll over will sustain a serious injury. Still, on a gross average that means take the probability of getting in an accident in the first place and divide that by 100.

Out of the 20 accidents I've seen, 5 of them were roll overs, one of those roll overs was a Lancer(belonged to a friend) that rolled over on a country road at 40, something caused his brakes to lock for a second and he slid into a ditch that had an embankment, which in turn flipped the car over.

 

My cousin was also involved in a roll over accident, his girlfriend at the time, was almost killed.

 

Odds are easily manipulated, and even if the odds are really good that you'll never have something happen to you, it might.

 

The odds were pretty good that I was never going to rear-end an FBI pickup... but i did, crazy and unlikely, yes, but if you dont believe me, I have the paperwork from the insurance claim to prove it. It even says "Your claim with the FBI has been settled"

 

 

 

Basically, I agree and dissagree with you. Can you really make a 30 year old car safer? I think so. Is a roll cage going to help with anything other than that slight chance you'll roll? Maybe, maybe not, it's luck of the draw, if you get hit in the right place, yes, if you get hit in the wrong place no. If you've got a harness to go with that cage or half cage, you're probably a little more secure... But, is spending all that money really worth it? If you're lucky, yeah, that $500-1500 you spent on everything may save your life. if you're unlucky, then you spent all that money, got hit just right and now you're in the hospital or you're unfortunatley no longer with us.

 

I've seen a car that rear ended a semi, and then was rear ended by ANOTHER semi, it didnt even look like a car anymore it was so crushed... but the driver of the car was pulled out(jaws of life) and had only minor injuries. I've also heard of people dying from a 10mph collision, and even an incident here in Austin where a Semi's wheel came off and bounced across to the other side of the highway, over a median, and happend to come down right on a woman's windshield, killing her instantly.

 

 

No matter how safe you make a car, if luck just isnt on your side that day. you could be badly injured or killed. That's just the way life is, sorry to be such a downer.

[Tony D]

That was a front impact at over 80 mph into a dirt berm at LVMS. The roof of the car and the roll bar did crush down about 3" and his helmet was damaged, but he walked away. The roll bar took at least 3 impacts as the car flipped end over end and there was a race seat and a 5 point racing harness installed.

 

And someone insisted they

1) Never took their hands off the wheel (non-deformed wheel, and broken finger---my presumption is from the helmet crushing siad finger aginst the roll cage, speaking frorm personal experience in a similar incident that happened to me in 1981)

2) He had the perfect line, and then "it just went away"

 

That's all I'm saying about that incident.

[Tony D]

Pop-n-Wood said:

"Race cars need fire extinquishers cause it is high risk driving. The risk on a street car should be SO LOW that they should not need fire extinquishers."

 

Should not NEED extinguishers is one way to look at it. I guess the TUV required triangles and seatbelt cutter/window breaker in Mercedes is foo foo stuff as well.

 

Being prepared with a competent emergency response kit is the responsible thing to do. I don't go anywhere without a fire extinguisher, and on half a dozen occasions I have USED it, and NEVER once on my 35+ year old car.

 

But the new BMW that started smoking on the corner of Crenshaw and Torrance Blvd? That owner was glad I had a Halon unit---too bad the FD didn't listen, and used an AXE to try and open the hood of her Bimmer. As I walked up with my 5# Halon unit, they admonished me 'stand back sir, we're professionals' as they hacked at the FRONT of the hood trying to cut out the 'hood release'... I reached into the open driver's window, pulled the hood release and sprayed the whole thing as the hood opened to the front and pivoted up....

 

Or the VW Bug owner who stopped at a light with me behind him as smoke and flames started to be visible in his rear vents.

 

Fact of the matter is the VAST majority of the motoring public is grossly underinformed and just plain ignorant of their vehicles and basic maintenance. The last thing I need is a Car-B-Que holding up L.A. Traffic. Smother it, leave a card, and move on. Then smouldering remains attract far less attention than something fully ablaze.

 

Take what you want when you drive. Chances are someone out there, like me, will be able to save your ride with OUR extinguisher if something happens.

 

At least you hope someone will stop and render aid.

 

As for the Austin-Referred to Incident, it's somewhat of an Urban Legend:

"I've also heard of people dying from a 10mph collision, and even an incident here in Austin where a Semi's wheel came off and bounced across to the other side of the highway, over a median, and happend to come down right on a woman's windshield, killing her instantly."

 

It didn't happen in Austin, it happened in Garden Grove, on the 22 Freeway as a Westbound Container Vehicle lost it's rear axle. The assembly went on-end, hopped over the hood of a 1980 Toyota 1-Ton Pickup driven by H4-Lights, and unfortunately went into the EB SR22 Fast Lane right into the lap of someone. This was several years ago. The fire extinguisher in John's Truck didn't do too much for the occupants of the Eastbound Vehicle. Dead on the scene. We thought we were dead as well.

 

Man, that was....199....7, 8? Maybe. Man, like 10 years ago.

 

 

On an interesting note, I got a discount on both my homeowners policies after the underwriter did home walkthroughs. He was impressed that I had properly functioning fire detectors in both homes, but that was a 'requirement' for the policy. What I got the discount for, was having 1, 5, and 10# fire extinguishers positioned next to the furnace, in the bathroom, and near the stove in the kitchen. "Mitigation of Damage" is what he mentioned. IF a fire does start, having an extinguisher will most likely than not LIMIT the damage done. This mitigation could be the difference between a REPAIRED vehicle under your insurance policy, and one that is a total loss. Standing back and 'letting the professionals handle it' has (literally) burned me or people I have seen more than once. Taking a cue from your own statements, Pop, it's bad enough we have to settle for what we get these days, if people were more responsible for their own the world would be better off.

 

A fire extinguisher is me being responsible. It's a mitigation, not a prevention. Once it lets loose, better to mitigate, than immolate.

[johnc]

That's all I'm saying about that incident.

 

The term I've heard used to describe the accident: "A Momentary Lapse of Reason"

[Austin240Z]

even an incident here in Austin where a Semi's wheel came off and bounced across to the other side of the highway, over a median, and happend to come down right on a woman's windshield, killing her instantly."

No, it actually did happen here too, it was all over the news about a year to a year and a half ago. It happend on I-35 halfway between the I-35 deck split and 183. In this case it was a single wheel that came off and bounced over the median. It imeediately came down on the womans car, with now warning, and hit the windshield. The truckdriver in the meantime saw the wheel come off and hit the brakes and pulled off the highway slowwing down enough that when the second wheel came off it mas only going a few mph and rolled off the road with him.

 

My "I've heard of people dying in a 10mph accident" was a seperate comment from the Semi tire comment, hence the comma.

[Daeron]

I will also add that an electrical fire can be insidious.

 

You ask for data, and we are doing our level best to provide it. Someone above mentioned that nobody was going to bother going to the expense of performing extensive crash test analysis on the S30. That means, the only way to gather data is to listen to primary sources: your fellow Z drivers. Here is *my* anecdotal evidence in favor of having a fire extinguisher; it mostly shows that it is not necessarily a thirty second window in which to act.

 

Almost three years ago, one night, I had an short which burned a fusible link. Somehow I replaced it with an oversized fusible link, and that night the car had some strange running problem. I immediately drove back home (two blocks) and drove my landlords car; The next day I tried to see if I could get the symptom to recur in the daylight, to no avail. I had driven around for ten minutes with the lights and stereo on, no problems.

 

I park in my driveway, and not ten minutes later a kid who was playing ball in the street was knocking on my door, telling me my car was on fire. There was a small amount of smoke coming out of the hood, I smelled plastic/electrical fire, and my windshield wipers were stationary, halfway up the windshield. (read: as opposed to parked, as I had left them; I didnt use the wipers on my little test run)

 

The fusible link tried to blow, but it was too large. It heated up, and melted the plastic cover (I had JUST found nice ones in the junkyard and put them on like two months before!! )which then caught fire. In the end, the entire link block, right up to but not into the main wire harness, got fried... but nothing else.

 

Now, I did NOT have a fire extinguisher; so all that was handy in my kitchen to put out the electrical fire was SALT. Naturally I rinsed it, but the effects still show there.. and unfortunately the car has been parked since then. However, my point has nothing to do with the salt; my point is, MY fire had to have been burning for five minutes or more by the time it was extinguished; and it had barely managed to necessitate a maxi-fuse upgrade with corresponding internally regulated alternator swap.

 

Personally, I kind of like living. If I can gather enough anecdotal evidence, that *I* feel carries enough depth and wisdom and reliable opinion behind it, that a roll bar and a fire extinguisher are worthy additions to help "just in case" then that is the only yardstick I have to go by. You must do the same; plenty of people thus far have chimed in with at least a few stories supporting the use of unibody bracing and roll bar (if not complete roll cage, for obvious and already stated reasons) and a few stories of helpful and handy fire extinguishers. IF anyone has any evidence that they are un-needed or somehow frowned upon, it would be nice for them to chime in.

[Mr.INSANE]

 

 

Id like to point out that This spot of the car is where there is the least metal stopping an impact. This is one of the main reason's i support rollcages going around the door area.

 

Take in mind though that he wrapped it around a pole this probally isnt going to be a collison most people do, And if it where a car it would look alot better than it did in this becuase of contact area

 

just adding my 0.02 cents

[(goldfish)]

That Z photo really has me thinking about putting heavy bars in the rockers under the doors to help stop that. Any comments?