is fixed back racing seat required for ordinary track day?

 

hell no!

 

another stupid question, then is a 3 point harness good enough to hold my butt in the stock integra seat?

 

you mean a stock seatbelt?

for your first couple track days, DONT WORRY ABOUT THE CAR! focus on your driving. once you get better, and your speeds increase you will need things like a seat, better suspension, etc.

just take the car and go have fun! but be warned...its a long twisty road to the poorhouse.

<- thousands of dollars in debt because of that first track day....

 

Thanks a lot! your reply is quick. Actually I am referring to a sparco harness. Since I dont need a racing seat i would settle for this, and my car should be ready to have a blast. Will you recommend a racing harness to hold myself better in the seat?

 

NO harness'

it will hold you in the seat but there is a safety aspect. ok here we go

the stock seatbelt, in the triangle configuration allows you to move down and in, in the event of a rollover. a harness holds you upright. the only way its 100% safe to install a harness is WITH A ROLLBAR. i dont care what anyone else says, or how many people say they have done it safley, it dosent matter. without a rollbar, you are taking a bigger risk than if you just had the stock seatbelt.

its not worth the chance. like i said, dont worry about any of this till after you first few events! you will be WAY more focused on driving to the limit of what you HAVE rather than trying to upgrade without knowing how to drive it to the limit.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gogogomoveit &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thanks a lot! your reply is quick. Actually I am referring to a sparco harness. Since I dont need a racing seat i would settle for this, and my car should be ready to have a blast. Will you recommend a racing harness to hold myself better in the seat? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Just wait. When you get faster and buy a seat, go with a 5 point. The problem with 3 and 4 point harnesses is that there are no sub belts.

This might be alright for autocross or if you just want to show off that you have harnesses or something, but in the event of a high speed crash on the track, you could in theory slide down and sustain SERIOUS bodily injury because the lap belt can/will push your intestines etc. up where they shouldn't be.

 

Driving with stock belts
Allows driver to change the
Weight distribution

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSpeedR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Driving with stock belts
Allows driver to change the
Weight distribution</TD></TR></TABLE>

yea you can slide over into the right seat and push the gas with ur left foot on turns, u can get like 10mph more around corners!!

 

I still am a proponent of fixed FIA buckets. It allows you to focus MORE on your driving, and less on bracing yourself in the car mid corner.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Team 4 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I still am a proponent of fixed FIA buckets. It allows you to focus MORE on your driving, and less on bracing yourself in the car mid corner.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, they hold you in place better, however, as Kamin mentioned, you will be crushed in a rollover when the roof caves in. The stock seats are made to recline under pressure. An FIA seat will not. If you don't have a roll cage, you are probably better off with stock or other non-fixed-back seats from a safety perspective.

 

you can use the stock belt with a nice seat also right? theres no real downside to that.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by teg racer 877 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you can use the stock belt with a nice seat also right? theres no real downside to that.</TD></TR></TABLE>
The stock belts generally won't work with a decent fixed-back bucket. The belts will not conform to your body properly because some seats get in the way. If you can route the belt so that it doesn't bind up on the seat, you should be okay - but you still better have rollover potection. Good harnesses are cheap (compared to the seats and roll bar) and hold you in much better though, so why bother with the stock belts?

For the most part, if you want to run a fixed-back seat and/or a harness, you'd better have a roll bar or cage. If you want to run a harness, use a 5-point minimum because the anti-submarine strap is important if you like your internal organs. If you use a 5 (or more) point harness, use a seat with a proper hole for the sub strap - do not route it around the front edge of a stock or aftermarket seat, because that will actually increase the risk of submarining (which you're using the sub strap to avoid). And as always, make sure to mount your harnesses properly with the proper hardware, backing plates, and strap angles.

If you don't follow all of those guidelines (BTW, having equivalent safety equipment for the instructor and the driver is not only common courtesy, but is also required by many organizations), then you're better off just using the stock seats and belts IMHO - they are at least proven. Once you start removing components from a safety system that is meant to work together, all bets are off.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gogogomoveit &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">is fixed back racing seat required for ordinary track day? </TD></TR></TABLE>
If you haven't done it already, please make sure you understand the rules or CCR of the organisation(s) where you will be driving.

Some of the larger organisations will now no longer allow you to make single or simple changes to the OEM safety equipment because of the effects on other parts of the OEM safety equipment.

Please make sure you understand what the rules require.

This writer thinks you should not have harnesses without rollover protection, even at slower events.

 

Fixed seat with Harness and roll bar are a package deal...missing one piece??don't bother. keep it all factory supplied or change it all. After all it is your safety at stake.
Now I have looked for real evidence that factory seats are designed to break in a roll-over and have found NONE!!! The closest I found was a long time ago GM seats were to break in a hard rear-end collision. Please provide any legitimate evidence found to support the statement that seats are designed to break in a roll-over.

 

Good Info everyone.

 

http://www.cg-lock.com/index.html

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Kamin &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">NO harness'

it will hold you in the seat but there is a safety aspect. ok here we go

the stock seatbelt, in the triangle configuration allows you to move down and in, in the event of a rollover. a harness holds you upright. the only way its 100% safe to install a harness is WITH A ROLLBAR. i dont care what anyone else says, or how many people say they have done it safley, it dosent matter. without a rollbar, you are taking a bigger risk than if you just had the stock seatbelt.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

wrong.

the same theory was e-mailed to sport compact car and their reply was

quoted from the august 2006 issue of SCC on page 28:

"interesting hypothesis, although it doesn't explain the three-point seat belt system that operate in the opposite direction, such as the ones found in the dodge viper or the rear seats in an E36 M3 four-door. Actually, if money and drivers allowed, auto manufacturers would like to switch to four-point systems utilizing a center buckle that links the shoulders and lap belts."

 

Their theory is no more valid than the poster's, and there are no plans at Honda to switch to the harnesses he mentions. Roof structure would have to be significantly improved, which is a possibility, but that has to happen first. Each car's safety package is designed for that OEM car. That Honda might design it one way, but Dodge and BMW another way, does not discount the logic behind Honda design.

Track officials at Summit Point can describe incidents to you that involve the M3 series coupe (with the famous collapsible roof) allowing the instructor and student to be pushed over toward the centre of the car by the collapsing roof.

Whatever it is that we are "improving," just make sure to keep in mind that the car was designed with OEM safety equipment designed to work as a package. It sounds like unless you're switching that package for another complete, well though out safety package, most bigger clubs are going to be frowning on the improvements.

Honda-Tech and this writer, unfortunately, have been a part of causing the realisation that organisers could possibly still have liability beyond the waiver if they do not get safety equipment under control and logically developed.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gogogomoveit &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">is fixed back racing seat required for ordinary track day? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Absolutely not.

 

WHat do you guys think about the Schroth quick mount system? They have anti-submarining straps and use the stock seatbelt mounting point.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by pos_cd5 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">quoted from the august 2006 issue of SCC on page 28:

"blah blah blah"</TD></TR></TABLE>

Please, please PLEASE don't believe everything or much of anything you read in SCC, it is NOT the end source for technical information. If you need just a logical argument about that, the idea of using 4-point harnesses was killed a very long time ago, with the concept of submarining. Old racecars used to use those, and people got really screwed up in accident. There is NO reason why any manufacturer would want to do that for a typical street car (I'm discounting a few exotics that for whatever reason think this is ok). I can nitpick all day about things I've read in SCC, or Import Tuner, or Super Street, or whatever, they're all the same.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Stinkycheezmonky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Please, please PLEASE don't believe everything or much of anything you read in SCC, it is NOT the end source for technical information. If you need just a logical argument about that, the idea of using 4-point harnesses was killed a very long time ago, with the concept of submarining. Old racecars used to use those, and people got really screwed up in accident. There is NO reason why any manufacturer would want to do that for a typical street car (I'm discounting a few exotics that for whatever reason think this is ok). I can nitpick all day about things I've read in SCC, or Import Tuner, or Super Street, or whatever, they're all the same.</TD></TR></TABLE>

ok, i garee 5-point is far better then 4-point because it has the anti-submarine belt. but lets talk about 3-point vs. 4-point. they both dont have submarine belts. so if your just switching from a sotck 3-point to a 4-point wouldnt it be safer regardless (assuming everything is installed properly)

 

Nope, because for the stock 3-point, instead of submarining, the upper part of your body folds over the lapbelt and to the side. The additional shoulder strap of the 4-point prevents that, as well as hikes up the lapbelt when tightened up. With the 3-point, that lapbelt stays right where it should, right against your hips.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by pos_cd5 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...so if your just switching from a sotck 3-point to a 4-point wouldnt it be safer regardless (assuming everything is installed properly)</TD></TR></TABLE>
I'm sorry, but I agree with my friend who already typed a response to what you said.

The entire OEM safety system is affected by a single change like switching belts.

If a manufacturer is thinking about switching to harnesses, he is going to be changing a lot more than just the belts. A harnessed car from a manufacturer is going to have additional safety equipment to go along with the harnesses.