4pt harness for DE?

i've done alot of reading on this, and most of my thought is in reference to this thread : https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...6&pagenumber=1 first of all, i'm driving a 996 coupe with the factory "sport seat" option. im looking for a way to secure myself in the drivers seat better than the stock setup. i realize that harness bars provide a better setup for a 5-6 point harness, but i dislike that it does away with the usage of the backseats. i DO frequently carry more than one passenger in my car, so the backseat is used alot of the time. also, i'm only going to be using this for DE's and such. obviously the harness wouldnt be used on the street. i know lots of autoxers have done the 4pt harness setup that uses the stock seat belt attachment points and utilizes the rear seat belt clip in points. i was wondering how something like that would work out. i don't want to drill holes in the floor of my car or anything, so i'm looking for a setup thats removable. Robert

Schroth Rallye4 harnesses allow you to detach the front harness part from the part that anchors to the stock seatbelt anchor points. It is DOT approved, although you may not want to use them daily. More of a pain than it's worth. They are reasonably priced, and ar 4 point, 2.5" belts. Remember that IMHO, you'll need a collar that slips over the headrest to keep the shoulder harnesses from potentially slipping off your shoulders as there are no guides. You can probably find them at http://stableenergies.com Good luck.

Here's more information http://www.soloracer.com/harnschrothfaq.html

collar? couldnt find any info on that - maybe a more specific link? btw - as noted in that second link, the factory sport seats have an integrated headrest which would prevent me from using a harness of any kind. is there a way around this? it seems illogical for porsche to design a seat that is incompatible with racing harnesses

that's what the collar is for. it slips over the headrest. It has two smaller webbing 'loops' that the shoulder belts feed through. Dave Turner Motorsports in San Diego carries them. Call 411 for their #. I'm sure they'd send you one. They look like they're worth about $5 but I think they cost $20-25. They are very nice to have on stock seats. Some regulations even require them tho' I've never seen POC or PCA check for them.

Last fall at the Road America club race the car ahead of me put two wheels off between the Carousel and the Kink. Rather than driving the car off the track he tried to steer back on. When his front wheels grabbed he shot across the track nailing me on the drivers side and driving me into the wall at over 100 MPH. The driver's side of my car actually deformed around the cage and doorbars. My seats ended up several inches closer together than when they started and my head hit the padded cage hard enough that I was seeing blinding stars for 5 minutes. My neck snapped hard enough when I hit the wall that I was stiff for a week. All this despite the fact that my car is equiped with a full cage including door bars, racing seats, back brace and 5 pt harness bolted through the floor. The reason I bring this up is that, while this happened in a club race, it is an accident that could have just as easily have happened in DE. The cars we are driving are capable of going so fast that even beginners are driving at speeds in DE where nothing short of full race safety equipment is adequate. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. I love DE and I love racing and am well into the process of building a faster, better 996 but I cringe when I read these threads where people are making huge compromises on safety equipment. Take it from someone that's been there. You don't want to be in a serious accident with some goofy harness looped over the back of your stock seat and connected to the rear seat belts. In a hard crash your seat back is going to break and those belts will be useless real quick. Find a good speed shop that really understands safety equipment and have them set you up with a compromise that you can really feel good about. It will likely require some time to get your car ready for a DE and it will cost some money but in the long run it will be money well spent. Now I'm climbing off my soap box. Jim

Well said Jim.

while i'd love to go get a full roll cage, racing seats, 6pt harness, etc. thats just not possible since my car is also my daily driver, and i frequently have backseat passengers in it. im not saying that the car im driving is safe at all - what i do mean, though, is that i can only afford to make a minimal upgrade in safety - ie, going from the stock harness to possibly a 4-5pt harness that doesnt require custom fabrication to install

Sorry Penguin, (hopefully not your real name) I did not intend to imply that everyone should have a full set of safety equipment. I realize that most DE cars play double duty and some safety equipment, like a rollcage, is actually dangerous on the street. What I meant to suggest is that you should work with a good speed shop to put together the best safety compromise for your situation. For example, if your car is a daily driver and you use the back seat, you could install a set of seats that still flip forward but have belt guide holes. I know Recaro makes them and I think several others do to. You can install a harness bar which can be installed/removed in 15-20 minutes and you could mount a five or six point harness properly through the floor and just roll the belts up under the seat when not in use. Perhaps this is not the best option for you. I'm certainly not an expert. I only suggest that you seek advice from someone that is. Jim

gotcha - thanks for the advice. while i dont have time to prepare for my upcoming DE, i will certainly be asking lots of questions while im there. thank you all for the suggestions

correct - "penguin" is not my real name

Go to the racing forum, there have been some interesting threads on this very topic. My take on it, FWIW I'm in the same boat (daily driver/DE), keep stock seats and belts or go to a roll bar-harness setup with racing seats. Anything else is at best a compromise and worst not as safe as stock.

maybe this might clear things up? i just want something that holds me in my seat better than the stock belts. cause you're sliding around all the time and if you hafta hold your hands on the steering wheel to keep yourself in the seat then you're compromising your ability to drive properly.

Penguin - Think of your safety SYSTEM. Put a harness in and if you ever roll the car, the roof will collapse. Your 4 point harness will hold your body bolt upright and your helmet will be pushed down by the roof - itself pushed by over 3000 pounds. With the 3 pt factory belts your body can move out of the way preventing serious spinal compression. It is a SYSTEM. Above, it was suggested to use a harness, GT3 seats and the factory bolt in roll bar. If not stick with the OEM belts and seats - they are safer than a part of a system assured to fail. Regards,

Bob, I'm not a safety equipment expert which is why my advice was and is to seek one out. I will say that "the roof will crush your spine" argument isn't the best one. I think the experts have said time and again (including in the articles Robert sited above) that you are far more likely to be injured by being thrown side to side in a three point harness in a rollover than to have the roof come down far enough to hit your helmet and damage your spine. I would also point out the "the system" that comes with the car is optimized for comfort, convienience and "street speed" safety. Not for the track. Enough about all that. I'm going to bed. Good luck with your mods Robert. Jim

Jim - I take no issue with your comments. I am basing my suggestion on real word experience with a 996 at a Watkins Glen DE. A driver rolled his car at relatively low speed. The roof collapsed and crushed the passenger side headrest. Thank God there was no passenger, especially one wearing a harness. After I saw that I decided that the Porsche roll bar and GT3 seats would be a must. Now I can have the harness and be confident that my roof will never whack me in the head. It is a properly designed system put together by Porsche engineers who are experts. I totally agree with your view that you need an expert. In this case Porsche made it easy. Back seats are rendered useless though and that's a nuisance. Regards,

Bob, Wow, that's interesting. Most people I have talked to have never seen a roof crushed to that extent by the B pillar. I certainly agree that a roll bar is better than a harness bar for a street/track combo athough you will get some that claim that even a roll bar is dangerous in the car when you are not wearing a helmet. I had a DASsport bar in my 996 before I converted it to a track only car and it seemed like a very good compromise to me. Have a good day. Jim

The CG-Lock has been rated well by the folks at Grassroots Motorsports. It's a small device that attaches to your seatbelt and helps it better secure you to your seat. CG-Lock This simple device will help you on the autocross course where it's gaining popularity. It will probably help you in DE's but I don't think it's for serious track use where a cage and harnesses are a better idea. I plan to hit some local autocrosses this season where I'll try it out.

Penguin, I was the starter of the thread you mentioned. I have added some research on that and, as many rennlist people said: the minimum compromise is a 5/6 point harness + harness bar+ seat w/harness holes . From there you have to add the roll cage. It seems that nothing else has been discovereed up to date !! Good luck! ( Please let me know if you discover something else!)

Jim I stress the system. The GT3 seats, harness and roll bar were engineered to workk together. Your comments are appropriate in the context of simply buying individual components. Everywhere but here you can buy a club sport version which comes with the seats the bar and harnesses as standard. Engineered as a safety system. At least one region of PCA that runs at the Glen is thinking about banning harness bars without a rool bar at their events.

Bob, I'm certainly not going to argue with you. I'm on your side. If I were in charge, no one would drive on a high speed track without racing seats, a cage and belts. As for the Porsche pieces being a "system", I'm not convinced that they put that much work into it. You certainly won't see their race cars using that stuff but I agree that it's much better than a 3 pt. belt or a 5 pt. and a harness bar. At the end of the day, the safety requirements of a car used on the track are so dramatically different than a car driven on the street that combining the two will always be a compromise. Jim

Interesting replies; no one seemed to alarm on the question that bothered me: 4 point harnesses. With a 4-pt harness, you don't have a sub belt to help hold the lap belts in place. So you've got two shoulder belts tugging upwards on the lap belts, possibly moving them into a dangerous position on your body. There are parts of your midsection that bend fairly easily (ie, your waist,) and parts that don't bend so well (ie, your gut.) This is one of the dangers the sub belt is in place to prevent. At least, that's what I've been taught. jas

Jason, You're absolutely right. It's just that there were so many other things to be concerned about that 4 vs 5 pt got lost in the shuffle. Jim

Thanks for the reassurance that I wasn't crazy or imagining things (or, at least, imagining things.. :-)) I know that Schroth has a 4-pt belt that has passed the various NHTSA crash tests. But I honestly can't see how they're safe for track driving. Hell, the factory 3-pt belts seem to do a better job of keeping the lap belt where it needs to be. Now, that's not to say the 3-pt is safe mind you. I was at Summit Point a couple of years ago during a DE, when a fella flipped his Mustang at the end of the big straight. They pulled him out of his car and he was alert, awake, and talking to folks. He was on a helicopter and off to the hospital, and dead before the copter landed. The doctor said he'd died of internal bleeding; had the doc been AT the car at the time of the accident he still couldn't have saved the driver. Driver had his factory 3-pt belt on, and that's likely what killed him. Scary stuff. Don't skimp on your safety gear. If you're going to do belts, do 'em right. jas

Hi Gents; I am not a 996 owner, but am quite involved and interested in such talk from many angles. While I do not have quite the earnest opinion that Bob holds about roll bars with race seats and harnesses, I certainly cannot discount his suggestions on that subject either. His is not an opinion to be taken lightly at all. It is the same opinion offered at last November's Zone 1 PCA Presidents Meeting, where Zone 1 was all set to ban race seats and harnesses without roll bars. It is indeed a bit of a stretch for the novice-to-intermediate to consider installing a roll bar, seats, and harnesses. Not all will be inclined to do so. I feel - and offered to the assembled DE group - that not allowing harnesses without roll bars penalizes the vast majority of persons who might have an incident to protect the small number who "might" roll their car. I do not see the percentages bearing out any rush to enforce such a ban. I do truly see the "potential" for injury, and I do indeed think that people should take it upon themselves to install ALL of this equipment, or damn well drive WELL within their limits. I simply don't feel it is our place to be in the safety business and tell people they have to do it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As mentioned, I have interest in many angles of this topic. I have been building a NO MODIFICATION bolt in roll bar for 944s for 5 years with great success. I am currently working hard to develope one for 996s. As JimB mentioned, I too am not overly impressed with the "safety improvement" offered by the factory bar. I see a large gap in the products offered for these cars. My goal is to fill it with a typically smart product that will increase safety more dramatically than other items available without impacting the car driving or owning experience. I suppose I mention this to gauge interest a bit. The 996 is a far more challenging chassis to work with than the 944, but I think I have come up with another excellent alternative to what is available currently. It will require no visible or invasive modifications to the car, offer quite a lot of traingulation and roll protection, and be fairly easy to take in and out, all at a very attractive price point as well! At some point I will be looking for some folks to test prototypes and offer feedback. If anyone is interested, let me know.

wow- this generated a much bigger discussion than i had thought - thanks for all the input and opinions! but this is certainly making my decison alot more difficult than before. at least im more knowledgable about the situation. heres a possible solution i've come across - brey-krause harness truss/mount bar looks like a good fix for not having guide holes in the seats - the loops on the harness bar guide and hold the straps in place so they don't slide down the seat. in addition, BK claims this setup is removable w/n 10 minutes - great for me since i am one of those weekend warriors. combine this with a 5pt harness and i think i'll be good to go. it looks like a reasonable compromise between comfort and roll protection. anyone else have their opinion on BK products?

Hmmm... You chose the right word. COMPROMISE. Brey Krause stuff is super quality, well engineered (in most cases), and beautifully wrought. I'm sure the bar will bo everything they say it will, but they are not perfect in my estimation. I take issue with the fixed mounting for the belts. I think I know why they do it, but I do not necessarily agree with it. Harnesses are intended to work best when stressed in straight, unencumbered lines. Anything that enters twists, turns, bends, etc., into the belt itself will compromise its ability to absorb stress in a linear fashion to some degree, and can lead to catastrophic failure in the worst case. Witness Earnhardt Sr. My exception to the B-K design is how do you adjust the belt mounting width for different seats? Shooting for the best-case straight belt pathways, a stock seat places the belts farther apart at the mount point than a race seat with pass throughs. Have they set their mount points to be optimal for race or OE seats, or have they split the difference? Any way you look at their design, it compromises the path of the belts. This may indeed be splitting hairs to some degree, but the theory of belt travel cannot be argued. Their's is a compromise I choose not to make with my designs, preferring a floating open belt bar where the belt can find its own unencumbered path to the driver's shoulders. However, this may indeed represent a reasonable compromise for your situation. Did I make it easier?