There was a FS post a while back from someone that was parting out a totaled miata that had the stock steering wheel replaced with an aftermarket without an airbag. The guy's jaw was wired shut for months and the wheel was bent at a 90* where his face hit it.

I never heard/saw why it was deleted... And would it be possible to get the pictures from it? There's a local that doesn't needs a visual aid for what will happen when he crashes...

 

It was my thread. I had a mod take it down because of some pending legal issues that stemmed from the wreck. This has all been settled and everything turned out OK on that end. Here's some of the carnage:

 

Joe told me the posts were archived - I'm 100% OK with them being restored. The spin-off seat-belt discussion had some valuable information in it, and could potentially keep someone from injury/death.

 

Link:

https://www.miataturbo.net/race-prep...w-chart-87229/

 

****. I can't believe I'm driving a deathtrap because of a nardi wheel.

Do I need to reinstall all the Airbag components to take it to the track now?

 

Thanks.

 

Interested in the stock unmolested black pillar.

 

 

Look at that kink in the center console!

Mobius' crash was half this bad, and his lower shift boot area was still taco'd like crazy. The Miata chassis sucks so much. Against physics. And cement walls.

 

The car looked even worse in person. Glad you're still around Scrambles, pick up another Miata yet?

I bought his hardtop, it had a sizeable crack and was ever so slightly distorted



Other than a very small crack somewhere on the passenger side, this was the only damage sustained to the top


Damage? What damage.

 

I've heard people tell others it was a bad idea to remove or alter the plastic bumper support. The first pic is pretty clear regarding it's effectiveness in a substantial collision. Zero. It is obviously only for the federal 5mph testing.

I know you were badly injured, but the federally mandated collapsible steering column did its job and did not skewer you like a martini olive with the entire shaft being the toothpick. It could have been worse if the center of the wheel was pushed back another 8 or 12 inches by the impact.

 

Hey man, I'm very pleased that you got that hardtop sorted. Looks great!

My wife (who happens to be a neuro-spinal trauma nurse) really put the foot down on miatas...for now. I couldn't even get her in a ND for a test drive. But I did end up with this:


It has a roof and lots of air-bags. The only modification I've made is a set of snow tires, and it got around great last winter.

Car as gone to the crusher, sorry.

And walnut trees. The cockpit compressed enough that I could not remove the passenger seat. The center console bulged up and to the right, jamming the seat in place on the rails, and against the rear shelf.

Yes. Could have been much, much worse. I'm very lucky to be more-or-less back to normal. Shattering my jaw against the steering wheel is probably what kept me from life-altering spinal or brain injuries. The wheel coming back into the pedal box did a number on my ankles and knee, but they were (relatively) easy to put back together. My knee was punctured by something from under the dash and leaking synovial fluid, which I guess is very bad. If that stuff gets infected there is good chance you loose the leg. I was confused why this was the first surgery addressed by the trauma team, but this was recently explained to me by an orthopedic surgeon who told me how much luckier I am than I knew.

Good times!

 

Unfortunately, I can't find the damn thread anymore. I didn't archive a link to it, so it's buried somewhere in the bowels of the database.

I'll keep looking...

 

In the meantime; the track safety thread got a little tweener girl fighty.
Did we ever come to a consensus about the optimal safety setup on the street sans airbag?
I don't trust my 27 year old bag, and, as a firefighter, I see an alarming number of crashes in which the airbag did not deploy when it definitely should have.
Of course, my experience is entirely anecdotal.

 

It's my understanding that the OEM seat-belts in airbag equipped Miatas are designed to "give" in the case of a front-end collision, allowing the occupants to move forward and contact with the deployed airbags. This is accomplished by the belts "stretching" (?) or "breaking" (?) a double-stitched section of the fabric that usually stays intact within the realm of normal driving physics.

I think I remember reading that you could modify the stock belts to eliminate this feature, but cutting up your seat-belt seemed like a bad idea to me. In hindsight, it was probably worth a try, as the belts were fairly worthless without airbags: In the crash, my stock belt was on and pulled tight around my waist, and it still allowed me to move forward enough for my hand to come off the shifter and break all the metacarpals, and my head to break the windshield after smashing my face on the wheel. My passenger, who's seat was all the way back, came forward far enough to break his sternum - not sure if this was caused by hitting the dash or the on belt itself.

Now, if there was a way to source new, OEM-quality, seat-belts that were designed to be ran without airbags, you might be OK running an aftermarket wheel on the street. I don't know if this is safer than a sketchy old airbag, or if it's even possible to find the belts you would need.

Please do your own research, I could be completely wrong about the OEM seat-belt design - this is just my best recollection and guesses, based on my experience. In all honestly, it's not like we're buying these cars for their crash-test ratings. Part of what makes Miatas so much more fun than other cars also makes them inherently more dangerous. For the record, I still think it's worth it - but don't make them more unsafe simply due to ignorance.

 

NAs had a fold that you could cut out.
You can buy NA belts for cars W/O airbags.

NBs don't have the fold section and are suppose to rip/give way in a crash.