Hello
my son wants to fit bucket seats into his 2003 Honda Civic 3 door. Will disconnecting the airbags in the existing seats affect the operation of the other airbags. Also, do these only operate when the existing seatbelt is worn (that is, will they fail to operate if he is wearing the harness on his bucket seats?? )

Regards

Mark

 

1) If by 3 door, you mean hatchback, then you need to post in the RSX/EP3 forum.

2) If you are concerned about your son's safety, you may want to consider not allowing him to install racing harnesses unless the car has a full roll cage and he wears a helmet the entire time he drives.

A factory seatbelt is designed so that if the roof caves in during a roll, you can lean forward towards the dashboard, so that the roof doesnt cave right on the top of your head, and crush your spine.

A racing harness is designed to hold you against your seatback no matter what. If the car does not have a rollcage, and the roof caves in due to a rolling accident, the roof will come straight down onto the top of the head.

And if the car is fully caged, and you are not wearing a helmet, if you are to get in any type of rolling or side on accident, you will bounce your head off of the metal tubing of the cage, and split your skull.

But if you go with a big name seat company like Sparco, you can get brackets to bolt in an aftermarket seat to the factory mounting locations.

 

Thanks for the info. He was looking at some Sparco seats but is having problems finding model specific mounting brackets for them (here in the UK at least). Will look into it further though.

Your comments about safety were worrying though - From the (admittedly little) I know about these things, it seems a fairly common thing for cars to have bucket seats and I can't imagine that everybody who has them installs a roll cage and wears a helmet. What you are saying makes perfect sense though - is it perhaps possible to install bucket seats without the harness and still use the factory seatbelts?

Regards

Mark

 

i currently run a sparco speed racing seat in my civic coupe. I was able to modify my aftermarket seat rails to accept the factory seat belt buckle. This way i was able to keep SRS airbags while i drive, and I do not have to worry about racing harnesses.

I would highly advise against a racing harness for street use unless u use a harness bar.

If u have the rear straps ( behind the seat) at anything less than a 90 degree angle from the seat, there is a chance that in a crash when u will be throw forward, u will compress your spine.

I would just do what i did, and pay a little extra $$ to get the factory buckle welded onto the aftermarket rails.

Also, u could look into RSX seats, as they will be able to bolt in with veryyyyy slight modifications and have a more racey feel than stock seats.

 

From your mention of UK and "3 door", i presume you mean the hatchback and not the coupe?

As Vantage pointed out, it might be easier to use a set of Honda seats. Type R seats from a Civic hatch would be ideal. The slight modifications which he mentioned would then not apply, as those mods are required to fit the seats into a coupe. (RSX is the US market Integra to all intents and purposes.)

The mention of danger from sports seats was referring to when they are used with a racing harness. They are fine with standard belts. The use of harnesses with buckets should only be if the car has a full cage, like bioweapon said.