What is the right way to mount a 4 or 5 point harness in an FC with no roll cage? I read you shouldn't mount the shoulder straps to the hatch floor because in an accident it will pull down on your shoulders risking injury. Can you wrap them around the rear strut tower bar?

 

bump, anyone?

 

i guess if someone knew they could help you,

I think its mostly done to a roll bar, I guess

you could do it to the strut bar though, im sure its

not the absolute best way to do it, but what are the chances

of the strut bar ripping out in a accident

 

Mounting to a regular run of the mill strut tower bar is a bad idea. Most are not made to take the abuse of an accident... However I ran across a company (can't remember who) who made a rear bar that was quite thick, and they advertised it as a safe mounting point for a 4 point. Keep in mind it was probably 3 times more metal then I've seen on most rear strut bars. If you made one it wouldn't be too expensive. Depending on how much you trust yourself or someone else with your life . From that company you might as well pitch in the extra cash for a good cage.

 

So you are saying basically forget it unless I get a cage? I only want the harness for autocrossing. The stock seat belt sucks (and the seats) for this. I'm not doing it for safety and wouldn't use it for anything but this. I wonder if I were to get a seat too like a Sparco Sprint or something basic, if that would provide more support for the shoulder straps than the stocker. I'd like to keep both the stock belt and the harness installed at the same time if possible.

 

If you're only autocrossing, the strut tower bar is fine.



Get a clip-in style harness, it comes with eye-bolts that can replace the stock seatbelt mounting hardware, under the carpet where your belt attaches to the floor. Replace one of the seat bolts, or the seat belt reciever strap bolt for the inside. then the harness will clip in and outand you can just toss it in the trunk when you're not using it.



Remember, the angle of the straps are very important. You want the shoulder straps to be -10 degrees or less, and the lap straps to be as close to straight down as possible.



It WILL deform if you use it on the street and get into a wreck. It probably won't break, but it will give enough to let your body hit the windshield, steering wheel, dash, etc.

 

for autocrossing im sure he knows not to bolt it to some

shitty strut bar.

 

Well, I have the Corksport strut bar in the back. I don't think its shitty but its no Cusco. The thing is, the courses we run at are very wide open, the chance of a collision is really small but you never know.



I don't know what to do now. The only guy I saw so far autocrossing an FC with a harness had his bolted right to the hatch floor. I'm thinking thats too steep of an angle but maybe not if I bolt it down far back enough.

 

just keep in mind that strut tower bars are not generally designed to experience side loads like you would be applying with the straps mounted onto them.



example: take a straw, try stretching and compressing it's long axis, without applying any other loads... it works ok.



now do the same with someone else poking and pulling at the center of the straw along an axis perpendicular to the one you are compressing and stretching on. what happens to the straw?



yep, thats what your straps will be doing when they are restraining you.





note, for the example above you will have to keep the loads low enough to not destroy the straw when simply stretching & compressing it, just observe how much less compressive and tensile load it can take when yer freind is poking & prodding lightly even.



I'd put a cage in the car or at least just weld in a bar that is beefy enough for this going across the car, most strut tower bars are relatively narrow.

 

just use the stock belts or get a roll bar, roll bars

arent THAT much money.



otherwise bolting it to the strut bar

it would be more for bling bling, which I thought

was what you were going for anyhow.