BAD HARNESS

[Dick Elliott]

Go to 4540372876 on E-Bay to see how not to run your harness. And its got a log book too.

[KevSC1]

Can't spell Kuhmo either.

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Kevin M. Keller
crew, '94 Saturn SC2 ITA CenDiv 2003 Champs
F&C, STL Region
http://www.saturnperformanceclub.com

[planet6racing]

Umm, Kev, you might want to check on your spelling of "Kumho"...

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Bill
Planet 6 Racing
bill (at) planet6racing (dot) com

[RacerBill]

That's not too bad compared to the seat belt mounting I saw a couple of weeks ago at a exhibit in Nashville TN a few days before the Busch race. There was a Busch car there with the belts mounted about 18" behind the seat! The belts extended back so far the the belt was bunched up where it went through the seat!

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Bill Stevens
Mbr 103106
BnS Racing
83 ITA Shelby Dodge Charger

[racer-025]

it looks like that was a quick fix to solve the max. 45 deg. angle (that didn't pass tech). I wonder why he didn't install a new proper bar and just mount the harness to it?

[Speed Raycer]

I've seen this "fix" on several cages. Many of them being in Autopower'd RX7's. I guess the reason it's fairly common is that anyone with a welder can do it. No bender or notcher required.

(don't know if this will work, but it might save everybody a little work:


------------------
Scott Rhea
It's not what you build...
it's how you build it

Izzy's Custom Cages

[jake7140]

(don't know if this will work, but it might save everybody a little work:
[/B]

My understanding is that that bar is not strong enough to hold much force in the event of a collision, will readily bend, increasing the belt's length and reducing usefulness.

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Steve
[email protected]
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/jake7140" TARGET=_blank>My racing page
</A><A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/elrss" TARGET=_blank>Elkhart Lake Racing_&_Sipping Society
</A>

[Dick Elliott]

The Autopower bar will line up if the seat is mounted to the floor and not the tracks. As for the Bush car, I guess that just shows DALE died for nothing after all. NASCAR, a sleep at the wheel again. DICK.

Originally posted by Speed Raycer:
I've seen this "fix" on several cages. Many of them being in Autopower'd RX7's. I guess the reason it's fairly common is that anyone with a welder can do it. No bender or notcher required.

(don't know if this will work, but it might save everybody a little work:

[Dick Elliott]

By the way Scott, look at the brake ducts on the car in question. Nice as any I've ever seen. The car is a spec 7 from Colorado, and their rules are almost like Showroom stock.DICK.

[ryotko]

What would be the recommended approach in a situation like this? The reason I ask is I'm in the same boat. The harness bar that is currently in the car that I recently bought is a good 5" below my shoulders. I had planned to add a new bar above it to attach the harness to but this photo has given me an idea. The problem is as the height of the harness bar increases, the distance to the seat decreases and I could see running into an issue with the sliders coming into contact with the seat.

So would it be OK to add a proper bar ( ie. same dimensions as the cage tubing) above the existing harness bar and route the belts as in the above photo. My total belt length would still be under a foot from the attachment point to my shoulders and the slider bars would not be in contact with anything?
Since this is new to me I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
Bob

[joeg]

You can add any number of bars to the main hoop.

The problem you can run into is each new seat may be different.

[Speed Raycer]

Just to be clear... the "(don't know if this will work, but it might save everybody a little work " was me trying to link to the picture on ebay

On the brake ducts... look's like the good ole Home Depot roofing aisle strikes again!

ryotko... If you use a bent bar, it will gain you some clearance for the adjusters if you're seat is too close.

Here's a pic of a customers car. You can see an added harness bar on a AP cage (which I had nothing to do with...)


------------------
Scott Rhea
It's not what you build...
it's how you build it

Izzy's Custom Cages

[Bryan Watts]

Originally posted by RacerBill:
There was a Busch car there with the belts mounted about 18" behind the seat!

Are we sure that such a mounting is necessarily a bad thing? It's been standard practice in European Touring cars to mount the belts to the rear parcel shelf or other places in the rear of the car for years. European rules don't require the harness bar or seat brace that we are all forced to run in our cars...noted, we are no longer forced to drill holes into or use braces on our FIA seatse.



[This message has been edited by Bryan Watts (edited April 04, 2005).]

[Bryan Watts]

.

[This message has been edited by Bryan Watts (edited April 04, 2005).]

[Knestis]

Willans specifically recommends running the shoulders that far back. They use a low-stretch polypro material designed for that type of installation.

K

[KevSC1]

Originally posted by planet6racing:
Umm, Kev, you might want to check on your spelling of "Kumho"...

Um.. Kevin needs to stop posting after the 1st Margarita...

------------------
Kevin M. Keller
crew, '94 Saturn SC2 ITA CenDiv 2003 Champs
F&C, STL Region
http://www.saturnperformanceclub.com

[Roy Dean]

A post from specialstage.com by Phil Smith, after crashing his MGB-GT into a tree (an incident I witnessed, and a car that I helped load onto the trailer):


Miscommunications on stage notes had me thinking I had "100" after the R5 before the L1....nope. She called it, I just didn't process it. Seeing that I clearly was going to launch off the far end of the hairpin, I stood on the brakes (bad habits learned at the track) and slid into a rather sturdy tree. 40? 45? 50? I'm not sure, but I was in third gear at the time of impact.

Enough that the front of the MG is toast. Front frame rails are pushed up, displacing the driveline rearward about 4 inches, so the rear axle is bent. From the firewall on back, the car looks to be intact, no ripples, no creases, no cracked paint, no popped welds (that I have can see so far). Windscreen and cowl intact. Cage totally unphased. Good, strong car. Obviously I've got to get this mess apart, but at this point I'm hopeful that if I can find a front clip we can get 'er fixed and on the road in time for ....?LSPR. Obviously engine and gearbox need disassembly and inspection to look for thrust surface damage as well.

I had the wind badly knocked out of me and in a panic for air unbuckled and got out despite my back absolutely killing me. She also was suffering pretty significant back pain. We both pretty quickly came to our senses about possible spinal injury and laid down and asked for backboards/braces. They took good care of us and we were both relieved to see XRays of necks/backs with no displacements/fractures. Right now, it's time for lots of Motrin, heating pads, and Percocet at night for a few days....

I'll take this moment to comment on a recurring topic here, since I unfortunately now have first-hand knowledge: helmets and harness mounts. We pull our harnesses down very tight, this was the first event on brand new harnesses, and I have the shoulder belts originating on a bar just behind the seats. We also both wear full face helmets. Inspection of our stuff today shows my steering wheel bent in about 2 inchs at the top and a large crack and scuff on my helmet's chin bar. There is now NOTHING anybody can say to me that would allow me to think that anchoring the shoulder harness further back in the car or wearing an open face helmet makes much sense; it sure looks like I would have been in some oral surgeon's OR last night otherwise.

Dallas and I both greatly appreciate the concern shown by fellow competitors, workers and spectators alike, thank you.

Any word on what happened to Dan/Bill/510? They had their rig next to ours this morning at the PennWells, and that was the first I knew that Historic Class now has been virtually halved.... I heard they were OK, but the car sure was ugly this morning.


p smith

[Dick Elliott]

LOWER the seat is the easy's way to fix your problem.

Originally posted by ryotko:
What would be the recommended approach in a situation like this? The reason I ask is I'm in the same boat. The harness bar that is currently in the car that I recently bought is a good 5" below my shoulders. I had planned to add a new bar above it to attach the harness to but this photo has given me an idea. The problem is as the height of the harness bar increases, the distance to the seat decreases and I could see running into an issue with the sliders coming into contact with the seat.

So would it be OK to add a proper bar ( ie. same dimensions as the cage tubing) above the existing harness bar and route the belts as in the above photo. My total belt length would still be under a foot from the attachment point to my shoulders and the slider bars would not be in contact with anything?
Since this is new to me I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
Bob

[RacerBill]

I just went through these issues with the chassis builder who is constructing my cage. I am glad I had the forethought to bring my seat along and this is what I found out. Having the seat with the car, he is able to place the horizontal bar at the correct height to my sholders. But, I had purchased a stock seat. Now, friends have referred to me as being height deficient. As a result the sholder belts would have to angle upwards from my sholders to clear the access hole in the seat back. So the chassis guy is going to move the hole downward so that the belts will be as horizontal as possible. I would have not thought to do that.



------------------
Bill Stevens
Mbr 103106
BnS Racing
83 ITA Shelby Dodge Charger

[Daryl DeArman]

Unless the manufacturer specifically wants you do it that way (long belts)...no way in heck would I do it.

I see it that Willans sourced a material better suited for the application. Not that they prefer that design.

All material is going to stretch a certain amount for a certain force. Is that certain "amount" a percentage of its' overall length, until that amount of stretch has used enough energy that it no longer has enough force to continue stretching?

I'd weld another round bar at the proper height and route it around to the "regular" bar if the hardware created a problem. No way any forces on those belts, (that you are going to live through) are going to be forcefull enough to bend a 1 1/2 x .090" piece of tubing. Not only would that piece of flat stock bend downwards and inwards until the belts were at a straight shot, the seat holes and that bar would probably do a pretty good imitation of a knife.

on edit--pain killers can make you type funny

[This message has been edited by Daryl DeArman (edited April 05, 2005).]

[This message has been edited by Daryl DeArman (edited April 06, 2005).]