Low Volume Vehicle Certification » Toyota

NZ Police get a RED CARD for RED STICKERS

johnbrett — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:24:28 +0000

The NZ Police have been found out making up their own rules- and have had to cancel a number of Pink and Green Stickers, and related offence notices.
A customer (who shall be nameless) was given a Pink Sticker because his car was below 100 mm gound clearance, even though it was Certified, and was at the ride height on the LVV Cert plate.

When the Police Officer was contacted, he advised that they had been told to issue offence notices if the ground clearance was less than 100, regardless of the LVV Plate ride heights.
The Police even wrote a piece in the advice column “NZ Performance Car” magazine explaining their policy.

The Low Volume Vehicle Technical Association contacted the NZ Police and explained the situation, and now the Police have changed their policy, and we expect a retraction in the next issue of the “NZ Performance Car” magazine. The customer who first complained has had his offence notices and Pink Sticker cancelled.

Top marks to the NZ Police out on the road for having to deal with some of the garbage cars out there, and dealing with the attitude they sometimes get. Lets hope that they get some better training on the rules!

If anybody else thinks that they have been wrongly ticketed when their car is LVV Certified, they should contact the Police, and if that doesn’t work, contact the LVVTA

Road Test requirements for LVV Certification

johnbrett — Sun, 23 May 2010 12:06:57 +0000

A stringent Road Test procedure is required for modified vehicles with changed wheels and tyres, modified suspension such as coil-overs, brake modifications, engine changes or any other modifications which may affect the on-road performance.

Part of the road test is the cyclic brake test, which requires the Certifier to perform three or five hard stops from 100kph to zero within two minutes, on a typical, uneven road surface.
Problems which can occur during the Brake Test are
1 Brake Fade, where the brakes or brake linings are inadequate for the performance or the weight of the vehicle,
2 Brake imbalance, where front and rear brakes are not matched, and wheel lockup is happening before optimum braking is achieved,
3 Wheel bounce and chatter, where the suspension is unable to keep the tyres in contact with the road surface to achieve good braking,
4 Dangerous effects on the steering, where the vehicle becomes unstable, or is hard to keep on course during braking.
5 Malfunction of ABS, EBD, Brake assist, and Stabililty Control systems.

The car being tested here is a 1988 Nissan Silvia, fitted with a SR20DET motor with drivetrain, front intercooler, S14 brakes and 5 stud hubs, adjustable platform struts, adjustable caster bars (front) Adjustable camber arms and adjustable toe arms (rear) and competition seats. It has been set up as a drift car, but it is an excellent handling car for road use.

Electric Rav 4

johnbrett — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:21:05 +0000

RAV4 EV under construction

We have Certified a number of Electric Vehicles. The vehicle shown runs on an AC motor, with lithium Ion batteries. Other vehicles run on DC motors and lead Acid Batteries.

When Lead Acid batteries are used, ventilation is required to ensure that the hydrogen gas given off cannot be ignited, or fill the inside of the car. Litjium Ion batteries do not have this problem.

Weight is a major consideration, the LVVTA advise that the GVM of the vehicle cannot be exceeded, which can limit the number of batteries used, or require seating positions to be removed. A good vehicle to convert is a commercial vehicle which will have a much higher GVM for load carrying, ths will allow a greater weight of batteries to be carried.

Vacuum brakes pose a challenge- one solution is to fit an electric vacuum pump.

Power Steering is another challenge- there are electric steering systems in some vehicles, and there are electric power steering pumps also.

Good news is that Electric Vehicles are exemted from Road User charges, which makes a huge saving in runing costs, (along with the saving in fuel of course)

To ensure that you avoid any LVV Certification problems, talk to John at an early stage

John Brett Technology Ltd. 0800 LOW VOLUME (0800 569865)

Seats and Seatbelts in a Van

johnbrett — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:05:14 +0000

Van seatbelts - view from side

Fitting seats and seatbelts to a van requires design to meet the loading requirements in a frontal collision. The LVV Standards for seats and for seatbelt anchorages set out the different ways of meeting these requirements.

In the Hiace shown, some second-hand seats were to be fitted, these had the seatbelt anchorages in the seat frames, making them “Stressed Seats”. This is much neater than having all the seatbelts going to the floor, however it means that the seat has to be strong enough to take the seatbelt loads.

Van seatbelts - view from rear

A quick stress calculation showed that the back beams were not strong enough, and had to be strengthened by adding a 50 x 25 box beam to the original 50 x 50 box beam to make a 50 x 75 box beam.

The mounting system is the “Over-floor mounting bar” system, as in the LVV Standard.

Also visible are headrest mounts on the rear seat back, because of the closeness of the rear window.

Installation by owners Eastern Rentals 66 TeRakau Drive 09 577 0128
Design calculations and LVV Certifification by John Brett Technology Ltd. 0800 LOW VOLUME (0800 569865)

The LVV Standards are here- Seats and seat anchorages [692kB PDF] and here Seatbelts [1024kB PDF]

REAR FACING SEATS
Rear facing seats have to restrain occupants from frontal impact. This means that the seat backs have to be far stronger than normal, or a supporting structure provided.
This is a matter which is often overlooked by some commercial modifiers.

The requirements from ADR VSb 5B are:
Appendix B
Rear-Facing Seat Strength

Rear-facing seats and their anchorages must comply with the requirements of the latest edition of ADR 3/…
In addition, a rear-facing seat should withstand, without imposing any load on any other seat in the vehicle, a load equivalent to twenty times the weight of the seat and its occupants applied in the forward direction relative to the vehicle. Seats intended to accommodate more than one occupant should withstand the loads applied by all occupants simultaneously. This requirement should be demonstrated with the occupant load uniformly distributed over the backrest and head restraint of the seat.
The occupant mass to be used to determine the test loads for each category of seat must be:
Category 1 – 68 kgs
Category 2 – 38 kgs
Category 3 – 26 kgs.

Reasearch link:-
[DOC]
COMMERCIAL MANUFACTURE AND INSTALLATION OF ADDITIONAL SEATS
– 8:15am
File Format: Microsoft Word – View as HTML
Rear-Facing Seat Strength. Rear-facing seats and their anchorages must comply with the requirements of the latest edition of ADR 3/. …
www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/vehicle…/bulletin/…/vsb_05_b.doc