Modified Camaro Blows Side Airbags At 140mph After Having Stupidly Loud Exhaust Fitted
Airbags are amazing devices that are responsible for saving countless lives the world over since entering the automotive mainstream. But, they’re not so great on the very rare occasions they go off when they’re not supposed to, as shown here.
The spontaneous deployment of curtain airbags in this video (at the 10min 20sec mark, if you don’t want to sit through the whole thing) is a particularly unusual case. It’s on a modified Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and the uploader reckons it was down to the stupidly loud exhaust he’d just had fitted.
It was a diverter system which - at the flick of a switch - dumps all of the gasses out of a separate pipe not far from the manifold, bypassing the rest of the pipework. As you can imagine, that results in the 6.2-litre supercharged V8 in this Camaro becoming shockingly loud, and further investigation revealed that the airbag sensor lives right near the diverter pipe. Sound is - after all - just a bunch of vibrations, so the theory is the vibrations were harsh enough to trigger the sensor.
Of course we don’t know for sure if that was the cause, but whatever set them off, it’s good to see that (thanks partly to the roll cage) neither of the car’s occupants were harmed by the deployment. Oh, and obviously we can’t condone doing 140mph on a public road…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
And now you just triggered CarTHROTTLE.
Jk.
I’m just gonna say it might be the vibrations causing them to blow not the sound of the exhaust. Seems more logical. Even he said the vibrations are effing with his rear view mirror. Either way savage car bud
Not sure why this was downvoted, it’s perfectly logical as there have been cases of vibrations setting airbags off
Sound is vibrations so it’s all the same thing really
Remeber the africa special when clarksons BMW blowed am airbag on this gravel road?
It was just loud enough at the right frequency. Probably upwards of 150db
Another reason the amount of safety stuff in cars is getting out of hand
“Oh my god, it sounds like a racecar!”
That’s because IT IS A FREAKING RACECAR.
The Camaro thought going 140mph on a public road was unsafe, so, you know, it did the safest thing it could do
No 140mph on a public road? Autobahn rules!
I posted this video, 7 upvotes. CT staff posts it, one gazillion
y do you care about upvotes?
Him and his buddy streetspeed or whatever seem like absolute top shelf douche nozzles.
Just another reason why modifying new cars sucks. Too much tech that gets in the way!