mkiv808

Seriously, will it provide any safety improvement whatsoever?

Furthermore, what is safer: The car with the 5-point harness and no airbag or the car with the airbag and a standard seatbelt?

This is assuming a frontal impact, because obviously a 5-point with a rollbar will be safer for a rollover accident.

AU N EGL

5 and 6 points are not legal for street use or DOT approved. If you get stopped by the LEOs you may be cited for a saftey violation. Just ask the the One Lap guys.

So then yes you need the air bags.

On the track, a properly installed harness system on properly installed race seats in most cases will be safer. Stock seats, especially the ZO6 sport seats are not safe to use with a harness system. Stock Coupe seats ( with hole in head rest) are much better, but again properly installed.

So it is still your call. Dammed if you do and dammed if you dont.

Too many guys put in the harness system just to have it

yellow01

I think the big difference between harness and belt/airbag in the situation you mention is the belt/airbag are designed to work together to slow the body/head/neck more gradually.

A harness alone will do this for body, but head and neck are on their own, hence the many injuries related to this in motorsport.

I don't want to jump on the HANS bandwagon, but it certainly seems to me that it does work.

So I would say that HANS+harness is far superior to belt+airbag.

Harness alone is probably better than the belt in many situations but for a head-on I'm not convinced.

and of course there's the legality that Tom mentions if that is of concern.

JMHO.

UstaB-GS549

Does F1, IRL, CART, NASCAR or anyone use airbags? Well, NASCAR doesn't count.

MitchAlsup

All forms of (real) racing ban air bags. There are several reasons for this.

A) car may be involved in more than one incident over the course of the race
B) driver needs to be able to see the road (or lack thereof) while accident is transpiring
C) there may be more than one impact per accident
D) the accident may take several seconds to fully transpire*
E) a deflated air bag makes it that much harder for safety crews to extract a driver from damaged vehicle.
[*] remembering the famous Richard Petty accident at ?Talledaga? where he flipped and rolled over 23 times along the catch fence.

ScaryFast

This is a simple question. Legality aside, 5 or 6-pt is safer than an airbag.

Two reasons:

1. With a properly used 5 pt harness you will never get close to the airbag. It will deploy 8 inches in front of you face. All you'll get is a facefull of powdered catalyst and an echo in your ears.

2. Airbags are designed to protect morons who don't wear seatbelts. Hence the 2-stage design implemented in the 90's...if you're wearing your belts you don't usually need the full force the bag can deliver. If you're unbelted, we try to protect your useless **** with a stronger bag to keep you from suing us when you fly out the window.

Yellow's correct, the entire safety system in a vehicle is designed to work together. Belts stretch, pretensioners deploy to take out the slack, and the airbag keeps your face out of the windshield. But a Harness renders all of that useless as you're rigidly strapped into your seat.

The drawback is that ALL impact loading is transferred through your body. If you run a tube-frame car with no crumple zones, you're exponentially increasing the shock to yourself. HANS is absolutely the way to go.

Can you tell I work with airbags for a living?

Wicked Weasel

No crumple zones would be real bad. GM found this out when building the C5. The doors were so strong that they were sending the shock wave through the driver instead of absorping it. they changed the door after that.

ScaryFast

That's why I drive a C4...I feel like I'm surrounded by paper mache'

yellow01

you ever see that amazing police chase video with the C4 that rearends a semi sideways at 100+? Comes flying apart, front and back, looked like the only thing left was the cockpit and the guy walked away!!

TUNED87vette

What about those whose vette's didn't come with any airbags. I feel like the GM belt is basically just a lap belt, and if I crashed, my face would slam the wheel no question.

I do have 5 point harnesses and a roll bar, but when I'm on the street without a helmet, I think it's not a good idea to be strapped in so tight. I don't really know though.

larryfs

they say a 5 or 6 point harness will stretch 24" on impact. And the longer the harnesses are, the more they will stretch.

seege

Another thing here is the danger of front airbag deployment while wearing a full face helmet. The angles are all wrong from what they are designed to do - impact your face. I've read that the engineers worry about broken jaws and worse. An open face helmet may be a better way with airbags active but this is a subject that hasn't been crash- tested by the safety engineers, as far as I know.

This track safety gear stuff is best when done as a system, even if it's done incrementally : good race seat and mounts with harness bar and 5or 6 point belts - good.

Add rollbar with harness pickups - better.

Add Cage -very good

All of the above with a good containment seat , Head and neck restraint, net (both sides best) fire suppression and a handheld extinguisher - best.

-CJ

JonLT4CE

I think you mean 2-4%. 24" would negate the usefulness of the belts!

Bill Dearborn

One of the instructors at the BMW school I attend is a safety harness expert and has done some research into how far belts stretch under impact. He has several videos showing the stretch with crash dummies but the most impressive is an in car camera shot of Johnny Benson when he drove the number 10 car. He grazed the wall and continued driving but the impact with the wall threw his body about a foot to the right and forward even though he was tightly strapped into his race seat. The stretch is a lot more than 4%. The belt is meant to stretch and slow the body down gradually Vs a sudden stop.

Bill

ScaryFast

Older cars don't have anywhere near the requirements that we have today on passenger safety. I would assume (with what information I have) that you would definately be safer with your 5-point on the street, but as stated above I don't think they're considered "legal."

There's really no downside to being strapped in tightly. The only difference is that newer cars are designed to collapse and crumple more than older ones, meaning more of the load goes into your body. But that's better in 85% of crashes than flying out of the seat or smacking your pearly whites on the steering wheel.

larryfs

the belts do stretch on impact. I heard 24" on a solid 100mph to zero mph impact. They say to keep the mounting bar as close to the seat back as possible, this way there is less belt to stretch.

So yes, there is enough stretch so your face smashes the steering wheel. Which is why I choose to run with the air bag.

However SCCA considers racers who are playing bumper tag, which may set off an airbag. And I believe that is why they call for air bag removal. But for HPDE's where there is no intentional contact, my choice is to have the airbag.

There is no definative answer, as I never heard of any actual data or testing on the subject of HPDE's.

rudyarias

I have my Z06 seats fitted with slots for the Harness which make the car very stealthy for One Lap and driving to my track days. I discovered that having racing seats with six/five point harnesses in your car when I've gotten pulled turned quickly into an ugly situation. When I had Sparco seats, I had my car torn apart by Troopers more than once which caused me to rethink and use my Z06 seats. I've gotten off with warnings when pulled over during One Lap since I went to my current harness/Z06 oem seat set up. The slots costs three hundred for both seats and look OEM.

xsiveone

Do you have any photos of the slots that you put in your Z06 seats?

rudyarias

I have images that I used for a guide when it was done by the auto trim shop. You're in Chicago, I had mine done by Don's Auto Trim in Alsip Il a south suburb in Chicago. I have not had any luck in posting images on this forum. As for the actual images of my seats, my 2002 Z06 is sitting at McCluskey Chevrolet in Cincinnati being worked on by Danny Popp (raftracer). The other (Z16) is sitting at home. I'm in St. Louis for rehearsals as I will be out for the summer as usual out on tour. Maybe Danny can post an image of my slotted seats.

rudyarias

The main reason that they are illegal are the different fastener systems used by different Manufacturers on the 5/6 point harnesses. The three point OEM belts are standardized with a single release button that EMTs/Fire Fighters are accustomed to in their training.

The other key reason they are not street legal is help law enforcement authorities curb/prevent any potential street racing when doing a routine traffic stop or DUI/seat belt check point. I've had my Z06 impounded twice (both at a DUI check point) when they were fitted with the Sparco Seats/six point harnesses.