Another question on the NHRA rule book's instructions on the installation of a 5-point harness. The pictures they show and the text indicate that the sholder harness' must be installed behind the sholders, perhaps on the roll bar, and between one and 4 inches down from the sholders. However, I have a brand new SFI approved 5-point harness that has the sholder belts going into one strap. This strap goes through the back of the race seat and is installed to the floor behind the driver's seat using an 1/8 think piece of aluminum on both sides of the floor with a large bolt holding the 90 degree bracket in place. Is this acceptable? Again the book is vague on this point and the single strap doesn't lend itself to attaching to a roll bar. Thanks in advance. It would be a real pain to show up in Vegas and not be able to run because of an incorrect installation of some safety part. Len
Contact the manufacturer,they should be able to supply the correct hardware for rollbar mounting. In my opinion,what you described would leave you w/ too much movement front to back in the event of a crash. Go to the crossbar behind the seat.
Sholder Harness Hi Len, Weld a steel tab on the back of the cross bar of the main hoop, directly behind the driver seat. Put both sholder harnesses through the seat and bolt both to the new tab on the cross bar. Hopefully you have a seat back mount on this bar also. You may choose to use that point to attach the sholder belts. This holds you and the seat with the floor and rollbar. Do not run sholder belts to the floor. The only thing that should be attached to the floor is the lap belts and crotch strap. Crotch strap should go through the seat and mounted on the floor about where the back of the seat intersect with the floor. Biggest thing is do what is safe. Use good mounting materials (good mounting tabs, big bolts). Follow the rule book. Make sure the floor is reinforced with some type of metal plate to keep the bolts from being pulled through the floor. Nothin to it!!!!:TU:
Belts? Hi Len, I see in the Summit Racing and Jeg's Catalogs that they ask when you order too specify rollbar or floor mount, should be an easy install, good Luck and I hope to meet you at theVegas Meet as I will be their with fellow Bpg Member John Schmidt, who is bringing his 7 second Opel v-6. Look for the motor home with the BPG banner and Logo on the Trailer, will have plenty of info on this great new Club for everyone and will be availible to answer your Questions, so get those belts and see you in Vegas!! Bruce,:beer :bglasses:
5-point harness questions I'll look for you Bruce. On the harness situation. I have the floor mount I guess. It has the two shoulder harness' going into one strap, a really long strap, and I'm hearing you can't attach the single strap to the floor behind the seat, something to do with spine compression in case of an accident. The reason I'm questioning this is that I really don't have enough room to attach the single harness to the cross brace on the roll bar. The seat is nearly hitting the cross bar now. Hummm. Gonna have to figure some'n out. Anyhow, I'll be towing my car on a trailer. It's in primer so it shouldn't be hard to find. It's never made a hard pass yet. Should be interesting. I tried it once at LACR, (well really twice but we won't talk about the first time) and it spun the slicks for nearly the entire quarter, I was up against the rev limiter nearly the whole time., Missed most of the shifts, went into neutral a few times. Pure, unadultrated fear as that was the first time trying to handle the thing. Got a much better set of slicks on there now, so should really help. Look forward to seeing and meeting all of you good BPG members who will be attending. Len
Mike on installation of harness Hi Mike and thanks for the reply. You probably read that I don't really have enough room to attach the belts to the cross brace with the seat nearly hitting it now. I've got to come up with something pretty darn quick even if it means removing about 6 inches of my lower legs and moving the seat forward. Again thanks very much for the reply.
Sholder Harness That's fine if the seat is against the bar, "it should be". You need to weld the tab on the back side of the bar... Your seat should actually be mounted to that bar!!
