Hi all.
I've bought seats for the upcoming DE season, so i can literally keep my butt in the seats without looking all contorted. I'm trying to avoid a roll bar simply to have somewhere to hang belts. I only do 2 - 3 events and I do not go 9 or 10/10ths. This is my fun dd that I like to just play on the track from time to time.
I believe I've seen some cars lead the shoulder straps all the way back and anchor them somehow to the rear seat belt locations.
Can someone share with me how that is done, what i need, and if there are any huge cautions due to the angles?
Thanks

 

P,
Depending on the distance to your rear seats, you may be able to run the shoulders there. If they are straight belts (designed to attach to a harness bar or cage) make sure the belts cross (left shoulder goes to right, right shoulder goes to left) behind the seat to help with tension.
IMPORTANT - SHOULDER BELTS SHOULD BE WITHIN +/- 10% FROM HORIZONTAL!
This is very important to reduce the compression load on your spine!

You could look for a harness bar that is easy to remove from the car so that you can put it in for tracking and remove for daily use. That way you can have the safety when you need it but not have to deal with it everyday.

 

Be careful here. I researched the same and spoke to many people at the track.

Here is the overwhelming consensus:

If you going to go to harnesses do the whole nine yards with a permanent roll bar. Take it out after the season if you wish but do not try, for safety sake, any semi-permanent one.

They will not hold up in some potential crash situations.

Good luck

 

That's right, the issue is that the stock 3 point belt will allow your but to slide down in the event your roof gets crushed. With a 6 or 5 point belt and no roll bar you will be killed if your roof collapses in a roll over.

Which is safer depends on how you crash your car I suppose.

 

Sooooo glad I bought a cage

 

Yeah, debate over. I went ahead and bought seats, 6 pts and a hefty roll bar. You can call this a closed case.

 

just be careful mounting the harnesses. i have been researching and theres a lot to consider when mounting the sub harness and the lap belts. even the way they wrap around the roll bar is important. schroth has some info videos that have a lot of details on wrapping the shoulder harnessers and were to locate the lower mounting points

 

It depends too much on your car. SFI has a safety pdf that you can find on the web on how to install here: http://www.sfifoundation.com/SeatbeltGuide06-05-12.pdf

Keep in mind that most track day hosts (e.g., PCA, NASA, SCCA, etc) will not let you on the track with your harnesses if they are not configured appropriately. For a variety of reasons, your stock three point belts will be safer than improperly installed race harnesses. I think some organizations also will not allow harnesses without a cage due to crush reasons.

It isn't just a crush thing though. If you have harnesses your body will not move forward at all in an impact. Stock belts are designed to give, then your head hits the airbag to prevent basal scull fracture (think internal decapitation). With a harness your body will be perfectly still but guess what your head will move forward and all of the slowing down that your entire upper body normally takes on is transferred into your neck. Add the weight of your helmet on your head, and this is why having a HANS with harnesses is required - to catch your head.

Even with HANS and harnesses, improper angle of the harnesses causes problems. Your sub belts must be sufficiently far back (not bolted to front seat mount locations) to prevent the belt from sliding up, which will cause too much force to go into your abdomin (as opposed to your pelvis) and can crush internal organs. Likewise shoulder belts with too much angle will crush your shoulders in an impact by pulling down rather than catching you from going forward.

You really cannot do halfway on safety. You are safest either with the stock 3 point and airbags, or with a full cage / rollbar, HANS, and properly installed harnesses. Combinations in between these two extremes are often MORE dangerous, not safer.