Attach 5 pt harness to harness bar?

[ajackson]

Tim Comeau helped me put in a couple 5 point harnesses in my car Friday evening for the ax/de the weekend (Thank you very much Tim). Unfortunately my car is having some sort of engine cut out problem that I am going to have to diagnose before going to any more events, but I have a question about where it is permissible to mount the shoulder straps.

Is it ok to wrap the shoulder straps around the harness bar? I know it is not as strong as a roll bar or cage, but I am thinking that it would still hold. The harness bar is attached to the same points that the stock 3pt seat belts were attached to (which are designed to support the weight of a body in a crash).

I know a bunch of you on this board do tech inspection, so I'd rather hear that it is not ok now than at an event. If anyone needs, I can post a picture of the setup.

[MikeD]

I'm not a tech inspector (so I may get over-ruled), but I would think it's safe to say that is OK to connect the harness to a harness bar, otherwise I think they would call it something else.

[RickK]

I believe that you can only wrap for the harnesses around a harness bar for autoX, not for DE or TT events. Brey-Krause offers a product called the harness truss that I think you can wrap the harnesses around, it is more like an I-beam than a round bar and offers much more support from pulls in the direction that a harness would pull in a crash. The purpose of a harness bar is too keep the harnesses running straight (perpendicular) off the shoulders so that a crash and your body moving forward do not cause the harness to tighten and pull down on you, thus compressing your spine.

[Dan Chambers]

Alan:

Typically, 944 harness bars (Weltmeister, in particular) connect behind the rear side window in the two plastic Phillips screw holes. If you remove the plastic Phillips screws, you'll find a tapped hole ..... for a harness bar (and they say 944's aren't prepped for performance driving, huh). My harness bar in my '87 944 is mounted in these factory tapped holes, and my straps are double-wrapped around the bar. At my 200Lbs. in weight, I'm confident the straps will hold me in the seat under the most (God forbid) extreme conditions.

With the harness bar attached to the body in this position, wrapping the shoulder straps on the bar is acceptable to the best of my knowledge. (You should "double wrap" the straps back on each other to ensure a bomb-proof hold.) With the harness bar attached to the high-point of the stock 3-point seatbelts, I'm not certain. I'd recommend contacting John @ Black Forest or Steve @ Dieter's for clarification. (I tend to think it's okay.) Also, you can contact Tom Comeau, our current Tech Inspection Chair for clarity. He's listed under "Contacts" on this site.

Good Luck!

[Jad]

The best solution is just to attach the harnesses to the rear seat seat belt mounting points and just use the harness bar for height/position, placing much of the stress on the rear seat belt attachment. Not any harder to do and only costs $10 or so in hardware, so I don't understand the wrapping method, even if legal and probably satisfactory.

Just my $.02

[ajackson]

My main concern is that the passenger side shoulder straps are just barely long enough while connected to the read seat points. I'm worried that my instructor is going to have a hard time with them and that the camlock is going to ride up to the mid section rather than on the hip like it is supposed to.

So my options are:
1: buy new (longer) shoulder straps
2. attach to the harness bar until I get a roll bar
3. leave it how it is