PatrickCarter

I'm not too in love with any of the currently available harness bars, so I think that I want to make my own to suit my needs. I plan on something similar to the Sparco variant, any down sides anyone that has this bar can see? My reasoning is that I am fairly tall and want to be able to drive comfortably on the street with the bar in, and all of the bars I have seen restrict my seat both back and reclined (I run my seat pressed all the way against the back board). I have heard of some people with the R&D bar, but I haven't found any likes to pics of it, any help here?

Thanks
Patrick

C6400hp

Hardbar?

The Spark

I have a Brey-Krause bar and it is offset to the rear of the shoulderbelt mounting point. I don't think the seat will hit it if it is all the way back and reclined.

Bill Dearborn

Unless you can do some analysis to make sure the bar is strong enough to take the loading placed on it when your body is thrown forward in a crash with another car or a wall I wouldn't recommend building your own. The only two bars on the market that I would trust are the Hardbar and the BK. There are several on the market that aren't worth the shipping materials they ship them in.

Bill

Miguels

i bought my kb from ebay used with lap mnmounts , harness and camera mount for 450. also i have the seat reclined and nmoved all the way baback with no issues

AU N EGL

Patrick How tall are you??

I am 6-2 and my seats are forward.

Driving with your seat back too far is not the best for control when driving, let allone any emergency turning to avoid hitting something darting out into the road.

ghoffman

Also, the Hardbar has protected many drivers who walked away from 100 ++ MPH hits. If you do an offset bar, to react the rotation, make sure you do not grab the center section between the seats, or try to react the forces by simply pressing down on the fiberglass/balsa floor with a tube on a little sheet metal foot, and make darn sure if don't use a 1/4 inch flat strap that can buckle with almost any compressive loads. I recommend that you use 2, 250lb drivers in a 30g hit for your initial load factors.

outnumbered

Maybe he should ask you to make a custom bar for him. Your friendly advise is admirable.

I will soon be in touch to discuss any options and learn more about harness bars and ETC.


Dan

PatrickCarter

I am 6'2" with long legs and arms, my street driving position is fine for anything, I could encounter on the street, but racing I straighten the seat out and move it up for obvious reasons, I am mainly doing this for autocross, just to hold me in the seat and I would NEVER use a harness on the street.

My idea is this, I would make a offset bar like many of the ones out there, and use down bars, but I was looking at using the hardbar lapbelt bracket, or making something similar to attach to the seat bracket, and sandwiching some heim joints between that, same on the bar. I was thinking chromoly tubing, possibly aluminum.

It's just a thought at this moment, it looks like hardbar might come out with an offset version, so I may just wait for that. I would just hate to have to take the bar out after every single race, just to comfortably be able to drive the car.

Thanks for the help so far

P

PatrickCarter

Who is KB?

Thanks
Patrick

fatbillybob

I did it. It is really easy. I used 1.75" dom 120 wall I had around the garage and 1/4" plate. The B piller mounts for the seatbelts shoulders is angled so you really do not need to worry about rotation if your bar basically goes straight accross unless you are putting lots of torque here by offsetting your bar for more rear room. Really your seat is stopped at the back panel so having a straight accross bar still allows about 20 degree layback on the seat when all the way back. Also, you will likely be stuck with either stock seats or say a sparco evo on custom seat track which may further restrict reaward position of the seat since your belts may clip in back there. Everything takes space. This is what mine looks like and I have threaded the plate for stock shoulder belt too.

Hardbar does it the same way (from their pictures) but uses aluminium and I guess is engineered. I did not do any math but know that the 1.75" 120 wall dom is way overkill and hope the B-piller anchors points are good enough which is reasonable since the shoulders go there and the torque I am applying is minimal. My bar can't rotate because of the angles of the b-piller trapping my bar. To rotate would mean pushing the b-piller out laterally and I do not think that will happen.

fatbillybob

Oh by the way to reduce rotational torque on my bar there is one 1.75" dom tube welded to the plate and one drilled hole just forward of that about an inch to attach to the b-piller. You can't see that in my picture. Then I threaded the forward hole and welded another nut behind that so I could fully thread my stock seatbelt anchor into which you can see.

PatrickCarter

Nice looking bar, but again straight across, which is what I am trying to avoid. I guess I could do a straight bar and pin and notch it so I can take it out easily, since I really just want it for the harnesses to hold me in the seat at autocrosses.

Thanks
Patrick

freefall

I'm impressed...not only supportive of your own products, but giving helpful advice to someone that is thinking about building a similar product to what you already sell.

fatbillybob

And "engineered" in aluminium so lighter than my steel overkill and at $350 bucks my time is worth so much more. But...if you have nothing to do and stock readily available you weld it yourself. I always do dumb things like this. I should post my homewelded sliding Sparco seatmount which took me a day to make since I was diddling around scouring my garage for hardware etc...when I could have just bought one for 200 bucks...oh well...some things never change.

PatrickCarter

I'm thinking 1.75 dom with a heim joint on the ends, knurled in the middle, with reverse threading. Then pin the ends so I can pull the pin twist the bar and pull it out, then reverse to install, and the mount for the heims can stay on the car so it would be easily removable, granted it wouldnt probably be safe for a 100mph head on shot to the wall, but would surely hold me in for autocrossing.

Gary what do you think

thanks
P

fatbillybob

Quick release safety equipment is just not a good idea to me. It only takes 10 minutes to unscrew my bar. Speed kills IMO. Besides you are going down the slippery slope. soon you will want a better seat, better brakes, bigger rearview mirror and then you will be asking D Farmer what to do next to get into WC racing! Don't overthink the project just weld up a bar and go have fun.

PatrickCarter

Sorry I guess I havent been clear, but this will just be to hold harnesses to hold my butt in the seat better, not really safety equipment, being as it is just for autocrossing. I have been racing for about 10 years now, and have a Z28 that I can open track with full welded cage, ect. ect. The vette I could care less about doing anything more then autocrossing it, the Z handles better anyways, and is faster. I'm not asking the question regarding safety, just trying to get ideas to make the bar livable, without having to take a tool box to the track to take it out to drive home comfortably. IMO harnesses have no value in autocrossing besides keeping you planted in the car, therefore all a bar would have to do it securely hold the harness right?

I think I like the bar pin idea, and I think I will try that I'll let y'all know how it comes out, thanks for all the help

P

fatbillybob

Oh.....then you have already been down the slippery slope. Shame on you. You should know better. You know that after you plant your butt with the harness you will want a real race seat to stop your legs from flopping around. Then the body roll is going to bug the crap out of you and then you are going to buy T-1 bars. Lets take a poll. Who thinks Patrick is going to stop just at the harness bar? ....Just kidding good luck please post your pin idea when you have done it. I would like to see it.

jlcvt

I check my car (04' coupe) today and the Brey-Krause harness bar and the seat never even come close to touching. It seems that the mounting bracket sets the bar back enough to keep it out of the way.