mountainbiker2

Just installed a Hardbar Harness bar. It weighs 8.5 pounds. 2 lbs over what is advertised. Still lightweight compared to other bars. It's a solid piece of Aluminum. Fits perfect. If your using your stock seat belts, they will be twisted across your chest. I ended up twisting the belt in the bracket, so it would be straight against my chest. Then you have to take off the retractor that's on the B-pillar and untwist the belt. Once you do all this, the belt works fine with no twist. The real reason you buy this is for shoulder belts. Mounting on the B-pillar is just to high. Unless you have your seat set high off the floor or you have a long tarsal the belts will be going up to the harness bar instead of level or slight angle down. For me, this is not really a problem. My car is a dedicated Autocross car. Track car would be a problem. Here are some pictures.

Steve A.

JakesBlackZ06

what brand is your harness bar?

sperkins

Hardbar. I have 2 for sale if you're looking to buy.

hamburgerman

What does a used hardbar go for ?

fatbillybob

Steve,

Respectfully, That is a really bad design from the picture. It might be better than it looks and perhaps the pic makes it look weird. The harness bar is at one level, the seat holes are at another level, and your shoulders are at yet another level. People need to pay attention to proper harness mounting for function and safety. Auto-x maybe nothing to hit etc. etc. I don't know if there is any danger in auto-x. I will tell you that a 35mph crash delta is 20g's. I think you could have a 35mph delta even at auto-x speeds but I'm not sure.

Here is a picture of a harness bar I welded. It keeps the OEM seatbelt shoulder anchor nearly in the factory proven location so one would expect the tested OEM function to remain unchanged for the street. The angle of the rollover hoop and the resultant angle of the plates keep the bar from rotating plus the axis is small to reduce any desire to rotate. The plate can be made to put the harness bar at the right level for your shoulders. That is just one design. Belts riding on the seat holes is bad and defeats the shoulder belt function.

There are also other ways to attach belts to bars and change the height of shoulder strap departure from the bar without moving the bar. In other words you may want to use the bar you have and weld special tabs or fixtures to mount your belts in the proper location.

If nobody gets hurt in auto-x then I guess it does not matter but if you were on a road course that is death waiting to happen. We have to look out for each other because no one else will.

John Holmes

Lazarus? 5 year old thread rises from the dead.

rjkc5y2k

Their are other differences that I noticed. How do you keep your bar from rotating? The way it's mounted it can pivot if an off center load in applied. Also the interior panel in your car which is like my car. There is rectangular pad above the seat belt mounts which are not there in mountainbiker2's car. The harness bar in mountainbiker2's car won't allow to mount the original shoulder harness. The bolt location is under the rectangular pad in the side interior panel. I bought a used hardbar and in the process of relocating the 12x1.75 mm hole for the bolt. Has anyone else had to deal with this? If so how did you relocate the tapped hole.

OH just noticed I think the side panels on mountainbiker's car have been removed. Is this correct? Are the panels in the various year C5's the same? If so how hard is it to remove the side panels? Appreciate any comments.

mountainbiker2

This is an old thread, but doesn't matter if someone else is using this bar. I have no answers, but just put trust in Gary at Hardbar that he designed it properly. Not sure if he did or not.

Steve

FASTFATBOY

He didn't, if the seat is mounted low in the car the Hard bar is wrong as it's 6 inches too high in my car. It might be ok with the stock seat or if the seat is mounted high in the car.

I bought some aluminum tubing, cut it to fit the upper side of the seat belt hole in the seat, split it longways and had it welded to the seat to stop the seat belts from rubbing there and possibly getting cut. I also did the buckle on the belt so the belt lays and is double layered there.

If the OP wants a bar that's correct in height look at the new Ridetech setup. There is one other also that saddles the package tray and goes up and over to the other side.

Here is mine, I will run it for now.

FASTFATBOY

Hardbar makes extensions to move the bar back about 2 inches that go behind the panel. It bolts to the seat belt mount and you mount the bar 2 inches backward through the panel.

I used the original bolt sent by Hardbar and drilled the B pillar so when it sticks through it serves as an anti rotation device.

Scooter70

Here's what mine looks like with the extender bracket and a drilled/modified trim panel. That pad was added in ~2002 so 2001s don't have it. I bought these panels secondhand and the original owner just pulled the pads off.



The belt angle is better than without the extender brackets but still not "ideal".



Here's what the extender looks like:

JakesBlackZ06

LOL, yeah I was looking on google and found the thread, figured it was worth a shot

JakesBlackZ06

got any specs or a "blueprint" for yours?? i have SS pipe and flat stock, could make one

MUKAK

i wanna make 1 also

BrianCunningham

If anyone needs one for a C4 I have mine.

Took it out when I installed the 6pt

Bill Dearborn

Gary's original thinking back in the old days (15+ years ago) was to make the shoulder harnesses work similar to aircraft pilots shoulder harnesses which are mounted higher than racing harnesses and have more of a vertical drop to them. He did this to avoid spinal compression. There were quite a few posts about the design back then and he inadvertently tested it when his C5 FRC hit the wall at New Hampshire. It worked for him in that crash.

However, the two applications are different and all of the race harness makers tell you to mount the shoulder harnesses much lower than Gary's bar will allow. I tried one in my C6Z and it was so high the shoulder belts rubbed on top of the seat back pass throughs even though I raised the seat to the point the head rest was hitting the roof of the car. The extensions that move the bar back or down as you wish only give a couple of inches movement and even though designed like a Nordlock will permit the bar to pivot if sufficient pressure is applied. As mentioned in another post the force in even a low speed impact is 10s of Gs which I doubt the locking feature could handle.

Bill

rjkc5y2k

Have a question regarding the rectangular panel. Can it be removed without taking the whole panel Off? Also with the extended bracket what keeps it from rotating? Thank you.

FASTFATBOY

Since I have the same setup,


See the serrated edge on the extender? That bites the B pillar when you tighten it down. I didn't particularly like that so I used the bolt that was given, without the spacer it's too long. So when you try and tighten the bar into the extender the bolt hits the B pillar because it's too long.

I drilled a hole in the B pillar for it to go in so it's used as an anti-rotation device as well as holding the bar in.

The extender I have doesn't look like the above pic. Mine only has two holes, the shortest one or the middle one as it's only about 2 inches long.