my question is it necessary or safe to have a bucket seat and harness with no roll cage?

here are some pictures











maybe i havent done my research, but how does the harness hold you safely in your seat. i understand how they are bolted in a civic, integra, etc. but how are they bolted in a 2 seater?

i came across this thread
http://forums.s2ki.com/forums/...00365

im guessing the harness has to be parrallel to your shoulders like this?
if so how would i do this without using a harness bar or roll bar or do i need one?





the reason why is because incase of this happening i want to be safe driving.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/NCAP/Cars/2387.html

 

in order to properly install harnesses, you need some sort of mounting point for them, in specific the shoulder harnesses. The proper mounting point is no less than 30 degrees down from your shoulders. There is some grey area here as some racing sanctioning bodies say 30 degrees, others say 45 degrees. Basically, they can't be wrapped around the plastic roll hoop covers or even the stock roll hoops. They weren't designed to support that sort of force. You'll need a roll bar or roll cage with a harness bar to properly mount the shoulder harnesses. The lap belts mount to your floorboard via eyebolts secured with washers to help distribute the load since the floorboard is thin sheetmetal. I hope that helps.

By the way, if you daily drive your car, harnesses aren't really safe, they limit your movement within the car to view blind spots and such. You can still run buckets with the stock 3 point SRS system.

 

thanks vapor. im really considering other seats, because im not really a fan of leather. it makes more sense to me. its jsut i wonder why some people would sacrifice looks for safety. ya i would admit it looks nice, but i rather be safe than sorry.

also, vapor would i have a problem squeezing in either sparco rev's, or pro 2000 in? thanks for your input.

also, do you recommend any roll bar or cages. i heard alot of people on s2ki saying that cusco is just for looks. i somewhat did research and it looks a bit unsafe on how thin it is.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Eh2 to Ap1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thanks vapor. im really considering other seats, because im not really a fan of leather. it makes more sense to me. its jsut i wonder why some people would sacrifice looks for safety. ya i would admit it looks nice, but i rather be safe than sorry.

also, vapor would i have a problem squeezing in either sparco rev's, or pro 2000 in? thanks for your input.

also, do you recommend any roll bar or cages. i heard alot of people on s2ki saying that cusco is just for looks. i somewhat did research and it looks a bit unsafe on how thin it is. </TD></TR></TABLE>

you can go to http://www.sparcousa.com and to the competition seats to get an idea of the dimensions of the sparco Rev seat. That's the largest you can go that will be a very snug fit in terms of clearance with the door panel. Nothing wider than the revs will fit unless you modify your door panels or cut some sheet metal .

It's not very difficult to fab up a roll bar for this car if you have acess to fab shops that do this sort of thing, build quality cages. The cusco is nothing more than bling. It looks nice but it has bends in it that compromise it's safety in a roll over. There is nothing stronger in a roll cage than a straight piece of tubing. By adding bends to the tubing, areas of weakness are encountered. Of course there has to be bends in a roll cage, but to minimize the angle of the bends and the number of bends is priority in creating a cage that will be stiffer when connected to the chassis properly and safer at the same time.

 

To add to vapor's contributions...

The Pro will NOT work. The Rev will work, but you will lose usability of the center console and will probably need to clip off an inch and a half to two inches from the shoulder ear in order to close the door without developing a dimple.

One that I'm really digging right now, I'm using it for track events and daily driving (because I've been lazy) is the OMP ARS. It's fiberglass, sits lower, holds you in like a Rev, not fun to get in and out of (climbing/crawling) but once you are in... damn. It just rocks and fits just fine fine fine.

 

i dont think its safe, but is it possible or are there any harness bars out there. i looked on the sparco website and only found they carry a few applications.
http://www.sparcousa.com/harness_bars.asp

and Mr. bagel, you were mentioning that i will loose usability of center console. are you talking about how it will look like in this picture?

 

you wont loose the center console opening if your seats are positioned in a way similar to that pic where one is foward, the other behind. If you have sliders, (it's a pain to slide the seats to open that console), you'll be fine. I've since gotten rid of that thing and don't use it anymore.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Eh2 to Ap1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">and Mr. bagel, you were mentioning that i will loose usability of center console. are you talking about how it will look like in this picture?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks for the ref. In two cars where I've installed the Revs in, with Taitec seats, the center console was unusable. Odd... just odd, unless you are using a different seat bracket which is higher/lower than we had configured. hmmm.

 

sparco has that new harness bar thing. i've seen ads for it in magazines lately, but i'm not sure if it'll work on an s2k.. but from the looks of the bar in the picture on the ad, it looks like it'll make your center storage unusable..... i've also seen another s2k with a bar that went across the top center storage thing so you could still use the bottom...