Race seats and harnesses without roll cage?

#1

I am prepping a car for spec e30 but currently at a stage where I’m not ready for the full cage but I feel like some decent seats and harnesses will help hold me in better. Can I install race seats and harnesses without the harness bar? I’m looking at Corbeau FX1 Pro seats and Corbeau harnesses because I heard they are a little longer and may reach the rear seat belt mounting points. The car is a two-door (so maybe a little shorter run to the back seat). ANY advice or thoughts would be helpful. Thanks,

Kevin

#2

I’m in the same boat, but you don’t want to put race shells and harness without some kind of rollover protection. I felt the best way to go was to pick up a bolt in roll bar (the kirk piece is ~$450-ish from bimmerworld) for the interim, it’ll give some rollover protection and a safe place to mount your belts. You can always sell it when you ready for a real cage and recoupe some of your cash spent.

#3

Other option include just buying a harness bar that bolts between the B-pillars, or having a custom built half-cage, that does the back half but not the halo or the door bars.
Ed

#4

It’s difficult for me to imagine that using the rear seatbelt bolts will work. I don’t believe the harness is supposed to pull downwards on your shoulders at such a radical angle. All the installation instructions I’ve seen show it coming off your shoulders level or slightly downward (say 10-degrees). I think you need a harness bar. I agree that a roll bar would be the way to go.

Sasha

#5

If you run a harnesses in a DE, it has meet Race rules, except for expiration. Therefore shoulder strap angle must be within 20deg of horiz.

Just to make sure that we’re talking about the same thing…There is a difference between a Harness “Guide” Bar, and a Harness Bar. A harness bar is more beefy and you can anchor your shoulder straps to it. A harness guide bar is not as beefy and it’s purpose is to correct the shoulder strap angle. Then you anchor the shoulder strap down to something. You do not fasten a shoulder strap to a harness guide bar.

#6

okay, I am brand new here. I went to the event at Barber in June to see a friend of mine run and had to get involved. I bought my 325 a month ago and have been working on getting the small problems fixed. I’m moving on to the bigger items now and planning to attend my first HPDE at ATL in December. I am worried about the seats and belts that came in the car, very old and not secure (in that order). I would like to get a set of reclining “sport seats” and a set of belts for the track [url=http://www.sparcousa.com/pharness_tuning.asp?id=374/]
I have seen this several times about having belts in the car for hpde meeting regulations for SpecE30. would a set of belts like these from sparco meet regulations? Thanks in advance.

#7

don’t mean to come off as an a-hole, but I’d like you to tell us which sections of the CCR you’ve already read to research this, and then ask clarifying questions.
cheers,
bruce

kilgojr wrote:

[quote]okay, I am brand new here. I went to the event at Barber in June to see a friend of mine run and had to get involved. I bought my 325 a month ago and have been working on getting the small problems fixed. I’m moving on to the bigger items now and planning to attend my first HPDE at ATL in December. I am worried about the seats and belts that came in the car, very old and not secure (in that order). I would like to get a set of reclining “sport seats” and a set of belts for the track [url=http://www.sparcousa.com/pharness_tuning.asp?id=374/]
I have seen this several times about having belts in the car for hpde meeting regulations for SpecE30. would a set of belts like these from sparco meet regulations? Thanks in advance.[/quote]

#8

Your link, even when pasted into my browser, does not work. It just gets me to the Sparco site so I don’t really know what you’re looking at.

I would strongly suggest you do not buy a reclining seat for racing.

For HPDE, pretty much any harness will be ‘legal’ provided the same style is there for the passenger seat also. If you are just a beginner, I’d suggest either making the stock belts work or buying some past-date harnesses of the same type you’re looking to eventually get. Mounting a harness properly is pretty important and I’d recommend doing it ‘right’ the first time instead of trying to retrofit something temporarily. A harness will usually need a proper race seat to work, and most likely at a minimum a harness bar for mounting if you will not have a roll bar or cage installed. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing deal. For racing, the harness will need to be within the date range specified in the rules, so there’s not much sense in buying ‘new’ if you won’t be racing for several years yet.

#9

The Link is to a Sparco version od the Schroth 4 point belt. This will not be permitted in the MA region as it is not OEM, and does not meet the CCR.

#10

leggwork wrote:

[quote]don’t mean to come off as an a-hole, but I’d like you to tell us which sections of the CCR you’ve already read to research this, and then ask clarifying questions.
cheers,
bruce[/quote]

Section 11.4.8 states that: “Any harness or any restraint system, other than factory stock, shall conform to CCR section #15.5, in all respects except for the expiration regulations.”

Section 15.5 covers the driver restraint system and is in the “Competition Section” of the CCR. That sure sounds to me like any (non-stock) belts do have to meet the same regulations as SpecE30.

Therefore, I think the answer is that 4 point systems won’t work, but 5 or 6 point would, as long as they meet all the other requirements of 15.5.

Matt

#11

Just to clarify some points, the CCR does not require that the driver and passenger restraints match in style - they both just have to satisfy the CCR requirements. You can have a racing shell and 7 point harness for the driver, and a stock seat with stock belts for the passenger. Any instructor is able to say they won’t ride in it though.

Harnesses in HPDE must either be DOT certified or meet all the requirements in 15.5 except for expiration.
thanks,
bruce

ddavidv wrote:

[quote]Your link, even when pasted into my browser, does not work. It just gets me to the Sparco site so I don’t really know what you’re looking at.

I would strongly suggest you do not buy a reclining seat for racing.

For HPDE, pretty much any harness will be ‘legal’ provided the same style is there for the passenger seat also. If you are just a beginner, I’d suggest either making the stock belts work or buying some past-date harnesses of the same type you’re looking to eventually get. Mounting a harness properly is pretty important and I’d recommend doing it ‘right’ the first time instead of trying to retrofit something temporarily. A harness will usually need a proper race seat to work, and most likely at a minimum a harness bar for mounting if you will not have a roll bar or cage installed. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing deal. For racing, the harness will need to be within the date range specified in the rules, so there’s not much sense in buying ‘new’ if you won’t be racing for several years yet.[/quote]

#12

thanks for the opinions. will take into consideration all your info.