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[Z06] 6 point harness on the street - extra safe or death with
C6 Corvette ZR1 & Z06General info about GM’s Corvette Supercar, LS9 Corvette Technical Info, Performance Upgrades, Suspension Setup for Street or Track
6 point harness on the street - extra safe or death with
SOoooo ripped out the seats, added sparco evo 2`s, brey krause seat rails, brey krause harness bar, and schrothe profii 2 6 points My question is...is this safer than the stock stuff for daily driving or do i really need a full cage/hans/helmet to complete the saftey system and thats just how it is...wich tbh...im weird and totally down to put on helmet and hans for every drive...there is somthing ritualistic about strapping in while the car gets up to temp before i hit up cotsco anyways
Edit - lol i cant change the title now...sorry the lisp
I'm in the camp of believing that you will be safer with the factory belts. A harness will prevent you from hitting the airbags and will put the entire strain of a crash on your neck.
However, it you are truly willing to helmet/HANS up before every drive, you should be just as safe as anyone on a track. I would quickly find that tedious to do tho.
In many states the 6-point harness may be illegal as no manufacturers certify them for DOT approval as the car manufacturers do. While they may be certified by racing organizers to a more stringent standard, the feds won't care.
I would expect the airbags will work safely as you will be positioned in the proper place for the airbag to deploy. While your head may be pushed back to the headrest in a crash, it would probably have less forward momentum at initial airbag impact than the head and whole body moving forward as much as the OEM belts would allow IMHO.
One perspective is that you're safer because you are locked into your seat and have now become one with the car. You will be able to outmaneuver collision danger with your driving skills.
On the other side, your head will pop off if you hit something without a neck-restraint system.
blood will spurt out of your neck in rhythm with your heart as it carries out the last commands of your now departed brain, squirt squirt squirt, decreasing pressure with each squirt, until it now just runs down your well secured body.
The 3 point system works because the upper body pivots around the diagonal shoulder belt which keeps it from submarining under the lap belt and also causes the melons to pivot outward. This along with knee braces designed into the IP and pretensioners designed into the lap belts pretty much reduce the submarining problem to nothing.
Racing harnesses aren't typically DOT approved because they haven't been tested to meet DOT requirements and they do not have a DOT approved latch. However, you can get 4/6 point harnesses from Schroth that are DOT approved. The Schroth harnesses are designed to duplicate the reaction of a 3 point belt by having an extra loop sewn into the inside shoulder belt. This permits them to be used as a 4 point belt system that reduces the chances of submarining under the lap belt just like the 3 point system does while still using the knee braces designed into the IP. The Schroth 4 point system comes with either a standard race cam lock or a DOT approved latch. Both of these latches allow the connection of a Schroth 2 point anti-sub belt.
This is a link to a presentation made by Joe Marko of HMS Motorsports to PCA and BMW HPDE's. I have seen this presentation several times and it is impressive. This pdf doesn't have the video's that Joe has linked into the actual presentation but they make the point about restraints and their proper installation. http://www.schrothracing.com/sdocs/TechTactics.pdf
As for using the harness on the street and not using a HANS I don't think you need to worry about that since the air bag will still reach you if you aren't wearing the 3 point system.
By the way despite rumors to the contrary these belts are designed and built in Germany not China and are imported to this country through one distributor.
Here are some pictures showing the installation of the 4 point DOT belts in my C7 Z06 with Competition Seats.
Since I took the pictures I have adjusted the shoulder belts to move the adjusters downward so they aren't placed right at the bottom of the HANS device. I haven't purchased the sub belt which can be hooked into the bottom of the DOT approved latch but if I did I would have it loop under my legs and attach to the same attachment point as the lap belts. This is known as the Formula Setup in the Schroth Competition Installation Instructions and isn't recommended for a seat where the driver sits straight up compared to a formula car where they are laying down but it will still work.
I am no expert but they are available if you call HMS who supplies the restraints for the majority of the NASCAR Cup teams. https://www.hmsmotorsport.com/
If you go to the HMS home page you will notice that Kyle Busch and Jimmy Johnson are a couple of their Customers.
If HMS's expertise is good enough for them it should be good enough for me.
Bill
Last edited by Bill Dearborn; 03-24-2016 at 12:26 PM.
One perspective is that you're safer because you are locked into your seat and have now become one with the car. You will be able to outmaneuver collision danger with your driving skills.
On the other side, your head will pop off if you hit something without a neck-restraint system.
blood will spurt out of your neck in rhythm with your heart as it carries out the last commands of your now departed brain, squirt squirt squirt, decreasing pressure with each squirt, until it now just runs down your well secured body.
So then im safe and not gunna pull a dale earnheart - I did wreck in my silver c6 z06 with them on and lived (spun out into a wall and kept spinning on an off ramp) the air bags didn't even touch my face by did burn my arm. I was totally fine but I'm young (27) I just read all this nonsense last night about basal skull fractures and then other stuff saying that's with the weight of a helmet not just your regular head.
Thank you for all the photos that is awesome!! Side note I am getting new shoulder belts since I had an impact with the other ones.
I'm in the camp of believing that you will be safer with the factory belts. A harness will prevent you from hitting the airbags and will put the entire strain of a crash on your neck.
(snip)
If that were true all race cars would have OE type restraint systems and air bags.
Reality is that the U.S. is the only country in the world which requires that restraint systems be passive, that is the safety standard is written such that in crash tests the air bags have to restrain the occupants of the vehicle even if they are not belted in.
As for safety on the street...
You will be much safer (as long as the seat stays attached to the vehicle) if you are restrained with a six-point harness than you would if all you had was an OE restraint system (seatbelt and shoulder belt).
The statement "...will put the entire strain of the crash on your neck." is not accurate. In fact, in a frontal impact most of the forward motion imparted to your body by the car's rapid decel will be absorbed by the six-point. Yes, your head will flop forward but that happens with the conventional OE belt system, too. Either way, the air bag would damp some of that. Obviously, if you added a HANS, there would be less neck movement, but....you can't use a HANS unless you also wear a helmet.
I own one Corvette which does not have an air bag but does have a five-point so I use it most of the time. The rest of the time I fasten just the seat belt.
I didn't read every syllable of every post in this thread (yet), but if someone hasn't said it yet - You are actually at a GREATER risk of neck injuries during a crash WITH a helmet on, IF you don't have a HANS device setup (and what percentage of folks doing occasional track days have one? Probably less than 10%).
Just something to think about the next time you go to a track day and the org insists on wearing a helmet in your street car.
One way to help mitigate this is buy the lightest (and probably expensive) helmet you can afford.
I have my new seat coming from Mirad, specifically designed to use the stock 3 point lap belts. I don't run a front air bag, I have an aftermarket steering wheel.
Last edited by Dan_the_C5_Man; 03-24-2016 at 04:59 PM.
The only thing I have seen that worries me is with harness and no roll bar ..
A person on summit point flipped there Vette with a "harness bar" the roof came down just enough to compress "the persons" vertebrae ... They lived but not ideal ..
I'm in same shoes ...thinking just rear roll bar for now ... Not full cage .
Last edited by Smart Line; 03-24-2016 at 05:09 PM.
I have a 6-point harness, a race seat, and a rollbar that meets NHRA rules and specs. Because of the design I created, I can install or remove them in under 30 minutes to exchange with the OEM equipment. While I feel much safer in race mode, the daily driving becomes such a hassle, that I make the switch for racedays as part of the normal preparation process.
The important things to address when making changes, are not the products themselves, but how the products attach to the car. Is a harness bar bolted to something that won't be damaged in a crash or cause problems if it is? Is the seat secured in the same bolt holes as the OEM seat? Are the harnesses attached to areas of similar or stronger locations than OEM? Is the harness installed so it keeps you and the seat in the same direction of stresses? If you utilize a rollbar for side and roll over protection, is it bolted or welded to the main hydroformed frame and not just the fuel crossover sheetmetal channel or the plastic and balsa wood floor?
IMHO, most naysayers have never experienced whatever the subject matter happens to be, so I usually disregard their comments.
The thing I know for sure im doing wrong right now is not having a full cage - am getting rear cage (custom that can be added to) very soon and selling my perfect condition brey Krause bar when I do that. The other thing I may be doing wrong at the moment is - my seat rails are just on the stock studs. I've read the seat rails need to be welded to the cage - so the cage becomes this little capsule that your seats and harnesses are connected to. As for legality, Im painting the release latch red and calling it a day. Cops are like yellow jackets they don't bother you unless you get too close or bother them.
Oh and I need a racing wheel - last crash I had the bag blew and the cop that came wokldnt let me drive home (car was fine) because the bag was out. Not saying I'm gunna wreck the new one but if I do and it drives Id much prefer to be able to drive home than wait around for a tow and uber.
Alright, now I'm getting nervous. Just bought a 6 pt. harness and bar but no HANS yet. Where is the best place to buy a HANS for track days? Hard to use/set-up?
Alright, now I'm getting nervous. Just bought a 6 pt. harness and bar but no HANS yet. Where is the best place to buy a HANS for track days? Hard to use/set-up?
Just Google and lots of sellers will come up.
It is not hard to use, just a little awkward to put the helmet on with it.
The thing I know for sure im doing wrong right now is not having a full cage - am getting rear cage (custom that can be added to) very soon and selling my perfect condition brey Krause bar when I do that. The other thing I may be doing wrong at the moment is - my seat rails are just on the stock studs. I've read the seat rails need to be welded to the cage - so the cage becomes this little capsule that your seats and harnesses are connected to. As for legality, Im painting the release latch red and calling it a day. Cops are like yellow jackets they don't bother you unless you get too close or bother them.
It's fine to use the OEM seat studs, but you could also weld brackets to the frame and then bolt a bar or tube to the brackets to create two crossmembers aligned where the studs are currently. You can then bolt the crossmembers to the OEM bracket that holds the studs. You can't get pitched out of the cage to the top or sides with the harness in place and the extra crossmembers attached to the frame will keep you in on the bottom. No need to weld the seat rails.
Yellow is a better color if you want it noticed easily.
Who cares if it's not legal if you can walk away from a bad crash.
My race car fabricator built a 5 point roll bar for my street/track car. He did a 4 point roll bar with a bar extending from the B pillar (coupe) down to tie into the subframe connector by my left foot. He wouldn't put the full halo in because I would be driving it on the street and he said a unhelmeted head and a roll bar don't work well together no matter how much padding is on the roll bar. Sounds reasonable to me. BTW, I never ran the 5 point on the street unless I also used the 3 point factory belts simply due to legality. Belt and suspenders.
03-24-2016, 04:14 AM
6 point harness on the street - extra safe or death with
