Procon Safety system and Air bags

[scott.john.mockry@bangate1.TEK.COM]

Hello,

The procon seat belt tensioning system showed up on the 89 "Model year" Audi 200's along
with the availability of the drivers side Air Bag. The steel cables can be seen if you look down
 below where the steering rack in mounted on the firewall. The cables are pretty beefy looking
and go around the back of the transmission and then are routed into the passenger 
compartment on the lower door sills. I don't know if the Audi 80/90 vehicles have this system.
The factory supplied "89 Model Year introduction" booklet explained the operation of this system.

I believe that the newest Audis are using a pyro-technic devise mounted on the seat belt 
take up reel, to tighten the seatbelts during a crash. I know Nissan has used a similar 
tensioning system on some of their vehicles for several years. I saw a demonstration one 
time when I was visiting NISSAN in L.A.  The tensioners pop pretty loud when they go off. I think
they use something akin to a 22 shell casing (without the bullet of course).They 
also set off the air bag on the drivers side when I was there. They didn't do the passenger one 
because they said that it  sometimes cracks the windshield and dashboard when it goes off. 
A friend of mine has a business  doing Air bag replacements for body shops and the
passenger air bags on some imports cost $3-4K just for the air bag assembly. Of course this
is cheaper than trying to replace the person in front of it.  Many cars need to
replace the entire dashboard after the passenger air bag goes off. The Audi V8 passenger bag
apparently tears open a section on the dashboard when it goes off. 
Scott M.

From: syklb@babylon.giss.nasa.gov (Ken Bell)

I've been told (from this list) that the major safety related change

made to the 5000 (100/200) series was the addition of the "Procon-Ten"

seatbelt pretensioning system.  Unfortunately, Audi America couldn't

tell me when that feature was incorporated ... it was "too technical" a

question for them ... they would have had to "call the engineers in

Germany" to find out.  Does anyone on this list happen to know?  Also,

how does one determine if a given car has that system in it?