I have zero idea why my posts' formatting is all borked up. Something is amiss...
7/17/25 Update: fixxored.
I have zero idea why my posts' formatting is all borked up. Something is amiss...
7/17/25 Update: fixxored.
Last edited by GregAmy; 07.17.25 at 3:37 PM.
Server issues
35K+ guests and less than 100 members using the forum - does that give you a clue?Originally Posted by GregAmy
Dave Weitzenhof
Bots and/or DDoS should not affect forum formatting, only access and response. But, it's not my board and I've long left vBulletin behind, so......and this post seems to be fine...but only if I put a quote in between the lines. Without that they're run-into sentences. Carriage-return is not working.EDIT
7/17/25 update: this has been fixed
Last edited by GregAmy; 07.17.25 at 3:37 PM.
Carriage return? Really? You expect these kids to know what that is?
Peter Olivola
(polivola@gmail.com)
I don't seem to have the run-on sentence issue.
Test sentence...
Dave Weitzenhof
???
Why would they do this? To save money? The fire system is mechanical and IMHO is the one safety item on the car that should be serviced regularly. Belts, HANS, and helmets are less susceptible to malfunction if reasonably maintained, but they have to be replaced? WOW If we can do away with the service interval on fire bottles then why are we concerned about dates on belts, Hans, or helmets? I was always told that "Risk Management" did not want to see the safety standards reduced, perhaps there has been a change in the logic.
I guess I am hypersensitive to this after learning that my fire bottle which was showing full green was inoperable due to the discharge nozzle being clogged. FWIW when I had my SPA bottle serviced last month in Brownsburg I found out that the electronic control box was not working properly despite the fact that it "blinked" when toggled as it was supposed to.
Unfortunately, proper testing would expend the system. Systems that are expensive, like fire bottles, make everything difficult. With manual extinguishers you can just replace them every year or two.I guess I am hypersensitive to this after learning that my fire bottle which was showing full green was inoperable due to the discharge nozzle being clogged.
We need a bring back Halon initiative...perhaps the MAGA folks can take this on as part of reversing Obama regulations!
If I thought you weren't being serious I wouldn't say this, NFW! Halon was one of the worst greehouse gasses at destroying the ozone layer. Now that the ozone layer is repaired we really don't want to go there again.
Peter Olivola
(polivola@gmail.com)
So I really wanted to provide some reasonable points/opinions regarding John’s post, without getting into the “lawyer vs engineer” BS that Peter thought up a while back.
If we’re talking risk assessment here that really is actuarial science, and I doubt any real math has been done by the manufacturers or the club at this point, although it appears that common sense is starting to prevail.
“The fire system is mechanical and IMHO is the one safety item on the car that should be serviced regularly”
Couldn’t agree with you more. The question is who should do it, how often, and why.
“I guess I am hypersensitive to this after learning that my fire bottle which was showing full green was inoperable due to the discharge nozzle being clogged.”
John, I'll say again - the approval of AFFF systems was IMHO, a knee-jerk reaction to the ban on producing the halons the sport relied on since the 70s. At that time there was a ban on further production, not the sale, and Safecraft had 10’s of thousands of pounds of it that they acquired in a DoD auction. There is still plenty of halon out there more than 30 years later, although the volume goes down every year. The US Navy alone still has about two million pounds of it in service. There are still aircraft that require it, just like there are aircraft that still require leaded fuel. Now that there are plenty of halon replacements that don't clog, the sport should no longer allow AFFF given its peculiar failure mode, OR, just require the two year inspection for AFFF. The prohibition on shipping the bottles that came along a few years later was politically driven too, although there’s essentially nothing that can be done about that as it was done at the federal level to force the movement away from CFC Halons.
“FWIW when I had my SPA bottle serviced last month in Brownsburg I found out that the electronic control box was not working properly despite the fact that it "blinked" when toggled as it was supposed to.”
I also have to say that I would not put an electrically actuated bottle in my car. I worked for years on missile systems that used "squibs" (the electro-explosive devices that power the actuating systems) and the level of quality control required to make these things reliable is astonishing, and I doubt that level is done on commercial level components. Then you get into the firing circuitry, and the battery, and the need to test before use. Pull handles are amazingly simple…and simply tested.
Yes, there are some installations for which pull systems are not feasible. I'm okay with that, but if you can use a pull system, you should.
So I want to stress another point here I’ve made before regarding the bottles. Yes, steel bottles rust. I’ve had to clean and paint the bottom of mine. However, a car would have to be terribly taken care of to generate the amount of rust to pinhole the bottle - and then, the gas would come out and the gauge would read zero. Another near zero here is the probability that 1) someone has a bottle and car so poorly prepared and cared for 2) tech misses it 3) said car catches on fire and 4) the pinhole occurs during the weekend rendering the bottle unusable. If this is truly a risk assessment exercise, then the entire scenario has to be considered.
But there’s a solution to this, and if one’s worried about corrosion, the solution is a stainless bottle, which all the manufactures provide. So any future spec should require the stainless bottle. But really the only thing that requires any testing is the actuator head. Any future spec should require a design where the head is removable and testable. The gauge should be in the bottle, not the head. My 1972 FSV had a bottle with a removable and testable head. The condition of the liquid can be tested in two ways. 1) Does it slosh? 2) does the pressure on the gauge increase when the bottle is heated? This verifies that the gauge is working. Evidently SVRA found bottles with bad gauges. I suggest that the club get together with some of the circle track sanctioning bodies and develop a new spec that addresses these design shortfalls. There are several smaller manufacturers, and ONE of them will go for it to be first to the market, and the others will follow.
Consider the self-serving and ridiculous position of virtually every manufacturer - they'll only re-cert a bottle twice - so in six years you are buying another one. Now you have a stainless bottle filled with an INERT material. It's not acidic, its's not basic, by definition its not an oxidizer, so there's no chemical degradation going on. Its stainless, so there's no weather based degradation going on. Now the bottle will see pressure changes, on the order of 2-4 psi across a typical day, maybe 6 psi in extreme conditions. Compare this to an aircraft that sees pressure changes of 10 psi several times a day, in rivited structure seeing significant loads. So you can easily deduce there's no pressure change degradation in the bottle. IF there is degradation in the bottle, then it simply needs to be heaver wall, and perhaps a serious look at the welding processes and cleaning processes used. So these limits simply make no sense.
“WOW If we can do away with the service interval on fire bottles then why are we concerned about dates on belts, Hans, or helmets?”
Indeed, why not? We all know the 2 year rule has no science behind it. The accelerated life test that the SFI uses is far beyond the worst of worst case scenarios I’ve ever seen, and believe me, working for the DoD you get some pretty crazy worst case scenarios - I've even seen a few play out. BUT - a set of belts that bad would be found at Tech in annual inspection anyway. If you can go 5 years on FIA certs with the same material, then why 2 years just because an industry group decided it’s best for their members bottom line? And as many have pointed out, passenger cars don’t have belt problems after decades (although they are polyester, not nylon. You can get polyester belts from Simpson. Should the spec require Polyester?) Would anyone really complain if we went to something reasonable, both time and condition based, like any signs of fraying coupled with 10 years max? That’s reasonable. Just to add another data point - I sent a set of belts in to be re-webbed and they came back with the same frayed material - and a new SFI tag. So obviously the manufacturers aren’t concerned either.
HANS re-certs? I’d like to see the procedure. Because if it’s a visual (and I'm pretty sure it is) then the pass/fail should be published so anyone can do it. Are they putting them in a device, flexing them to a point and measuring the spring back? I doubt it. How about ultrasonic or x-ray NDT? Nope. So if any knucklehead at the helmet store who can read a tech bulletin from the manufacturer can do it, you can too, as well as any tech inspector.
Helmets? I don’t know about you, but the helmets are getting bigger and bigger but the cars are the same. And I’d love to see the data - when was the last time someone in a non-professional class of racing was killed or seriously injured because of an inadequate helmet design? We’ve lost half the manufacturers that made good stuff and we’ve seen the rest reduce the number of models offered, or watched the overall designs stagnate. The new offerings are all Chinese made - not that it’s all bad, but my POS Zamp is in no way as good (durable) as the Simpson RX I had 20 years ago. I still believe that given the different designations for Karting, Motorcycles, and Cars, there should be a separation between pro level helmets and ours. If someone wants to drop the coin on a FIA 8859-2024 fine, but I’m not convinced that the energy levels we are exposed to justify that level of protection. As far as degradation of the helmet over time is concerned, yes the padding degrades - but I’d argue the styrofoam beading that is the actual protection does not. The shell doesn’t degrade either unless it’s dropped, and a chipped/cracked helmet beyond a certain size probably is degraded, and should be rejected. But it didn’t degrade due to just time in any reasonable human timeframe. Do we have a process in tech for inspecting and "decertifying" a helmet after a crash? if not....
“I was always told that "Risk Management" did not want to see the safety standards reduced, perhaps there has been a change in the logic.”
But we’re not reducing the standards. The performance standard is the same, only the inspector or inspection period is affected.
If one doesn't believe in the engineering here, then why believe in the analysis required for homologation? The same potential degradation processes apply to frames, yet we don't test them or suspension components, despite their probability of hurting more than just an individual driver. That's all down to a simple visual inspection, and man, you should have seen the welds on the old Royale FSV-based sports racer I bought for parts. They stick welded the mods on!
Great post with lots of good information. It would be nice if everything could be brought into alignment in a logical fashion but...
Damn, Rick - that is just an amazing post. Thanks for taking the time to share it all - pure signal, no noise. You rock.
Should be mandatory reading for all Apexers!
bt
After so many years in the club and on Apex, and watching so many thing get screwed up because of rule makers who have no clue about what they are regulating, it is refreshing to see that someone with Rick's professional background actually post something that is factual.
Kudos to Rick for his very well reasoned discussion. I think we should approach the CRB with a strategy to bring some reason and engineering justification to our safety equipment rules.
There is a documented and accepted practice widely known as Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) it is an accepted practice in modern industry. SAE JA1011 is the industry standard for this process.
There are four principles that are critical for a reliability centered maintenance program:
- The primary objective is to preserve system function - make sure it works when it's supposed to.
- Identify failure modes that can affect the system function - figure out how it could possibly break
- Prioritize failure modes - which ones are going to hurt you?
- Select applicable and effective tasks to control the failure modes - clean, inspect, lubricate, function check, or replace considering the system lifecycle.
Seven questions that need to be asked for reliability centered maintenance
An effective reliability centered maintenance implementation examines the asset (here is a race car) as a series of functional systems, each of which has inputs and outputs contributing to the success of the vehicle. It is the reliability, rather than the functionality, of these systems that are considered. The SAE JA1011 has a set of minimum criteria before a maintenance strategy can be called RCM (Gulati). The seven questions that need to be asked for each asset are:
- What are the functions and desired performance standards of each asset?
- How can each asset fail to fulfill its functions?
- What are the failure modes for each functional failure?
- What causes each of the failure modes?
- What are the consequences of each failure?
- What can and/or should be done to predict or prevent each failure?
- What should be done if a suitable proactive task cannot be determined?
Vehicle OEMs have been doing these studies and implementations for over 30 years. Vehicle maintenance has evolved to require far less intrusive maintenance by better design, manufacturing and assembly processes. Commercial aviation has implemented RCM since the 1960's when Boeing first built designed the 747 that would carry 3 times as many people as a 707. Commercial and military powerplants are now maintained and overhauled based on performance data, predictive analytics and condition based inspections.
We can certainly perform this for firebottles, restraint systems and helmets.
This was my day job for the last 25 years.
Last edited by DanW; 07.17.25 at 2:43 PM.
“Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty.” -Peter Egan
That is not a post:
It's a fully developed MANIFESTO!
Damn, Rick - that is just an amazing post. Thanks for taking the time to share it all - pure signal, no noise. You rock.
Lola: When four springs just aren't enough.
So here's a question - is there a way to capture and channel some of this momentum? Take this to a separate thread?
Make a specific request to the CRB to take a more active role in spec development?
I can think of several things to address:
1) Develop a prospective specification for firebottles
2) Develop a specification, inspection criteria, and lifetime for belts
3) Develop an inspection criteria for Head and Neck devices (essentially, refuse to allow the use of devices if the certification and inspection criteria are not made public)
4) Request that the SCCA reach out to other sanctioning bodies to develop a more cost effective and consistent safety regime (essentially create a user based organization to counter SFI)
5) Request that Snell develop a separate standard for professional level helmets, and freeze the current Snell SA specs for a minimum of 10 years - I'd even suggest backing of to the SA 2015 spec and carry it forward to 2030.
6) Look into partnering with a specific safety equipment manufacturer to ensure equipment made to the standards if there's too much pushback from SFI
I think this would need to be addressed the same way that the FF community approached getting the acceptable tires for the class modified. Someone needs to generate the 'case' and submit it to the CRB. A case number will be created. Then members who have interest in the particular case submit a letter of support, etc
https://www.scca.com/pages/rule-making-process
I do not disagree with any of this. However, remember that there are over 1.3 million lawyers in the US (highest number per capita in the developed world). The requirements for FIA/SFI certificcation are driven at least in part by fear of litigation. Any kind of injury suffered wearing a device developed following point 6 (i.e. dismissing SFI) could/would surely generate a serious lawsuit.
John Nesbitt
ex-Swift DB-1
Indeed. And if the last two years of action by SCCA National have convinced me of anything, it's that there is a complete lack of institutional fortitude, to murder a phrase, on the part of SCCA to be the leader and take a stand that is in any way controversial or anything other than following the masses...
There is also a massive lack of technical knowledge in the club administration - yet they believe that they should be able to make the tech rules.
Very sad to watch.
That was not my intent. Point was, if SFI refused to listen to reason, then the strategy would be to partner with a manufacturer who was willing to manufacture and test to the SFI standard, but not submit to SFI specifically, and I'm not sure it needs to be. A manufacturer may be able to claim the products were designed and tested to SFI specs but not certified by SFI. Here's a paragraph from their formula car restraints spec:
"The procedures, test evaluations and standards contained herein, areintended only as minimum guidelines for construction and evaluation ofproducts. Certification that products meet such minimum standards is madeby the product manufacturer and products are not certified, endorsed orapproved by SFI under this program.
1.3 Use of the "This Manufacturer Certifies That This Product Meets SFISpecification 16.7" logo/designation, the authorized artwork style, orconventional lettering by a manufacturer, on a subject product, is intendedonly to indicate that the manufacturer of the product has represented thatthey have submitted the product to the recommended tests, with positiveresults, in compliance with the standards established herein."
However, they've baked the two-year rule into their cert process. You can build and test to their specs but the manufacturer is required to have a two-year replacement to use the logo, which is interesting, because it has nothing to do with the design or testing....
Now if you look at their presentation on belts:
https://www.sfifoundation.com/wp-con...%2012-2014.pdf
In several places the refer to tests run for the military and the NTSB - without acknowledging that AIRCRAFT SIT OUTSIDE. Nylon degrades the most, and in their belt specs for pro reclined applications (e.g. INdycar) only polyester is allowed - but the two year rule remains. BUT - in many cases after two years the degraded material still meets the pull standards for the harnesses (If i'm reading the data correctly). Well that didn't give them the answer they wanted so they added in a derating for "dumping". They also bring up the fact that some dyes hide the degradation.
So, If we were being smart about it we should only allow poly (because material is just a fraction of costs compared to anything else), manufacturers should develop an anti-dumping design, and if we were smart the belts would include a tell-tale to gauge UV exposure - because that is what its all about. so again, worst case (high levels of UV not normally seen except in aircraft stored outside) combined with bad installation (despite their having installation requirements). Its all made to look like science, but its not.
When you look at the member list it is dominated by drag racing and pulling groups. It would be interesting to have someone from the club poll the other member organizations and ask what the sentiment in their members is with regard to to the two-year rule.
With respect to fire systems, the two year life is baked into the spec, along with the max number of re-certs/refills:
"Single Seat Open Wheel Rear Engine On Board Fire Suppression Systemsshall be inspected for recertification at least every two years after the date oforiginal certification or as specified by the certifying manufacturer. When aunit is determined to be acceptable for continued service, a newconformance label marked with the inspection date shall be used. In-fieldrecertification is permitted, but ONLY by the original manufacturer or itsauthorized agent. Mailing of certification labels to customers is strictlyprohibited. Systems shall have a maximum field service life of 6 years fromthe original date of installation. At the end of the 6-year period, all systems SFI Specification 17.2 Page 3 Effective: April 19, 2019Copyright © 2020 by the SFI Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without written permission of SFI is prohibited.must be returned to the manufacturer or a certified recycling service centerfor lawful disassembly, recycling and decommissioning. No system may berefilled more than 6 times during its 6-year field service life."
So they expect you to return the item you purchased? What bull****.
Note - unlike the belt presentation, there is no supporting documentation for the re-cert rules on fire systems.
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