Under the current rule you could go out and make your own suit and as long as you use the right material you can use it even though it may fall apart in a fire.

The entire point of having an SFI or FIA cert on the suit is to demonstrate the suit has been tested. [/b]
Matt,

Ignorance is bliss ain't it? That isn't an insult, I felt a lot better about a lot of things until I knew better. There are plenty of things that still make me happy...please don't ruin those for me.

SFI doesn't test the suits, only sample sized batches of the materials are tested, including colors--for example the shiny nomex colors aren't as protective as the duller colors.

The tests are destructive, they can't test a suit, say it passed and then sell it. It will only "work" once. The manufacturers are only verifying (by applying the appropriate SFI patch) that the materials used in the suit bearing the patch are of the same sandwich that meet the corresponding test parameters.