Hi, Samanator.
I'm not one of the official Vendors of this forum, (though I wouldn't mind becoming one) But I do have some knowledge and opinions about the questions you have presented and figured I would give it a go and see if I can give you any useful information...
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samanator previously said:
To me the real world effect of moving the bumpers up (or down) and away from the Federal mandated height would be of more concern to me (not to mention the effects of changing the vehicle dynamics by moving the center of gravity and roll axis).
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I don't think there is a federal mandated bumper height. At least not that I know off. If there were one I would like to know about it.
I haven't been able to find any regulations having to do with a mandated bumper height except having to do with what category a vehicle manufacture puts there car under i.e., mid size SUV, full size SUV, car, etc.. & I think allot of that ties in with the emission standards that the vehicle is going to be held to.... If you know of any please share, I think being legal is something on every vendor’s mind that would be reading this...
I do know that European standard dictate a very stringent height regulation. This is why the new 07 wranglers have a very ugly shroud hanging down under the front bumper to hid a drop crossmember, but from who I've been able to talk to at jeep (designers, marketing executives, production planning people) It's only there for Euro standards and can most likely be removed by the owner after purchasing the vehicle...
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samanator previously said:
I realize there are vehicles out there with adjustable ride height but they compensate for this in their bumper and suspension design. Even more concerning are the bumper modifications I’ve seen. There appears to be little or no engineering above whether they fit and how do they look. How do these fare in a crash test?
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These are all good points. There are a few companies like ARB that have been around for many years, and have the ability to do crash test because of their status as an international company, and the amount of capital they have and budget to work with. Even still from what I understand they still didn't crash test the FJcruiser, and went of calculations. But if you look close the FJcruiser is based of the same platform as The Prado & 4runner. The Prado has been around for a wile so there is a chance they crash tested it, but I wouldn't know...
The truth is crash testing is not in the budget for most of these smaller manufactures. To do crash test At a governmental standard and supply all the necessary data would cost more than most of these companies make in a year (unless the Fed starts a program to test thease products for us).
I can only speak for my company but from my perspective it takes allot to please your customers these days. Some want a bumper that is going to be bullet proof so when they see the deer on the road, they don't have to worry about swerving, others are concerned with there safety and want something that is going to collapse & crumble to offer the occupants more protection in a crash...
Along with that comes the need to be able to stand up with the harshest punishments people can put on a bumper or component in a off-road arena. For my company, our purpose in making these bumpers is for people that are going to be using them for off-road purposes and are design specifically around holding a winch & doing recovery. Of the designs I've seen (of other companies) my concerns have been more with weather or not the bumper is going to stay on in winching operations, & not damage the vehicle during recovery, than with crash tests....
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samanator previously said:
What would they do to another vehicle in a crash?
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Most likely damage it quite a bit more than the stock one would. But so would hitting a car with Suburban vs a Honda civic, or your standard FJcruiser vs one towing its maximum load rating....
KE=1/2MV^2..... The M makes all the difference..... Of course The V makes even more...
Most manufactures are going to send a disclamer along with there product warning people of the possible risks of using there product, and what the company is willing to be responsible for...
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samanator previously said:
We expect the manufactures of the vehicles to go through all of this test and provide the data but we have little or no expectations from the aftermarket.
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This is true. One thing you need to remember is the budget issue. If you hold after market manufactures responsible for providing crash test data and such in order for their products to be marketed, in the off-road industry you'll loose the majority of your vendors for these products. Its great for the companies that have a multi million dollar budget, but for the little guy whose in it for the wheeling & not for the money, you've now put him out of business, leaving yourself with a small handfull of manufactures...
I'm sure any of the smaller vendors you purchase your products from have tested them (except for crash test) extensively to make sure they perform well when it comes to there designed purposes.
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samanator previously said:
Under the same standards that some have put to the HID headlights, how do we know if these modifications are legal?
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It mostly depends on the state you live in. For example: Utah has lift laws that require a specific Distance from ground to the frame Depending on the wheelbase & track width of the vehicle. For example a jeep wranglers frame rail has to be with in 24" of the ground in order for the vehicle to be legal for registration in the state of Utah... On the other hand in Certain counties in Idaho, I don’t have to have a hood on my car, nor doors, or probably even a cab for that matter. As long as my VIN matches up with my title and all that good stuff, I'm in....
When it comes to Lights I think the reason for all the regulations and standards have more to do with lights (especially HID's) ability to blind people. I don't think after market bumper could blind other drives, but if they could my bet is they would be regulated allot more...
Light Force makes lights that have interchangable filters that come in multiple colors, green, amber, blue, red, etc. They will still sell it to you but often they will empysis that the filter they are buying my not be legal in your state and to check local regulations.. I know the blue color is great for snow and that its legal in Alaska, but not in Utah...
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samanator previously said:
And of more concern how do we know these changes meet the OEM standards for crash worthyness.
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You don't. Plain and simple. I can tell you that with most modern day airbag systems the sensors are designed to detect rapid changes in momentum and acceleration vs if the bumper or body is crumbling. By adding a larger heavier bumper to the front of your vehicle and increasing the rigidity theoretically your more likely to have the airbags deploy at a slower speed impact. Its quite possible that Toyota took all this into account during the designing of the FJC, but I'm not sure. I know with jeep they have.
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samanator previously said:
What are the performance changes made to the vehicles responses by these changes (Adding weight to the front end or changing the ride height must change the skid pad, slalom, braking and acceleration numbers)?
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Good question. And maybe that’s something that smaller manufactures could do is test there vehicles in those respects, but in order to get good viable information (all across the board for the consumer) it would require a national organization to set up the test, and preferable one that knew what they were doing. Consumer reports basically destroyed the reputation of a company by doing these same test, but performing them improperly on the subject vehicle. Even though the company was able to prove there vehicle lived up to the entire test standard in a fair & well-governed test later on the damage was done.... No more Isuzu trooper for the states, and pretty much no more Isuzu for the US for that matter...
Sorry that was a bit of a Tangent....
I don't have any problem setting something like that up for my company. In fact I think that would be useful information to have, but I think the key thing that really needs to be emphasized is that allot of these thing need to be looked at by the buyer & recognized for what they are. If you stick 200 extra pounds of weight on the front end of your car, its going to handle differently, your tires might where differently, and same with your breaks. That’s just the way is... Same thing if you put 200 lbs on the roof of your car, its going handle differently, if you don't compensate your driving for the added weight something catastrophic could happen...
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samanator previously said:
Being and engineer and a pessimist I need to see real numbers, data and documentation.
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I'm not yet a degreed engineer but on my to it. I'm not a pessimist, and maybe that wasn't the word you where looking for, but I am cautious when it comes to products. I'm very cautious especially when it comes to suspensions and things like that. I've seen some very bad suspension components & designs that have failed, on the road. When your car suddenly goes out of control that’s when thing get scary....
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samanator previously said:
Has anyone seen anything from theses venders along these lines prior to the products being offered on the market?
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No, because most people aren’t interested in numbers or diagrams, my guess is that’s why companies don't make them readily available to everyone.
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samanator previously said:
In my job over the years I have brought many items to market for the companies I have worked for and have had to meet standards all around the world for these products with regards to safety, RF, noise, emissions... What standards do these products meet?
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Emission sensitive equipment no matter what it is held to a different standard, same with safety specific equipment or anything having to do with combustible materials...
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samanator previously said:
I expect the parts from Toyota to meet all standards but I really welcome a response from our other vendors.
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Well, there you have my response. Currently our companies only aspirations is to make bumpers, racks and things like that... Right now we have one bumper that we put a receiver hitch in. its max tow rating is 1500 to 3000lbs depending on the vehicle it goes on.... We have already redesigned the mounting for it and are going to have it pull tested before it goes into large, full scale production our calculations put the failure point somewhere right around 60,000 to 70,000lbs...
I know that allot of the companies out there, specifically suspension companies have at least 1 degreed engineer on there staff full time, and allot of the smaller ones just get there product from another manufacture that has engineers doing the designing and then they just stick there name on it...
I'm not sure how many do this but another solution for the smaller companies is having PE's review there products....
Sorry for the novel...
to myself...
You get lots o answers with detail!
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