pstoppani

The shoulder harness holes are about and inch too far apart to be ideally compatible with a HANS; this can cause the harness to not fit in the grooved channel on the HANS, allowing them to slip off a bit.

So, I had mine modified by moving the plastic "o-rings" moved closer together and filling in the newly exposed outer handle with some matching leather.

Before:



After:

pstoppani

One other thing that I commonly do to make the seats more comfortable with the HANS is to place cushion behind me to provide a bit more space for the back of the HANS. This allows it to not be pinched against the seat and relieves the pressure on the chest. Tipping the seat back helps too.

Hopefully, sometime in the near future, Recaro and others will update the seats to be more HANS compliant; I don't want full on racing shells...

Al Pettee

Pete,

Nice seats. Where did you acquire these from?

mkozink

Thanks for the informative post. Last year I started using a HANS device on the track and it does require some experimentation to optimize its performance and comfort. Nice job.

Prior to modifying the seats did you try crossing the shoulder harnesses behind the seat where they attach to the harness bar?

pstoppani

Cantrell Motorsports got them for me four years ago.

No, I did not try that; didn't think of it. But, I don't think it would have helped because the issue for me is that the belts were pressed against insides of the holes, hence the modification to move the holes closer together.

IamSMC

Pete, what was the material removed from between the holes? That wouldn't compromise the integrity of the seat? I assume you didn't have to remove any material from the outside edges of the seat where you filled with leather.

TheOtherEric

Is there a steel beam on the outside rim of the seat where you added the leather? If not, the seat integrity was certainly compromised. Perhaps I'm just not convinced this mod was needed. The existing grommet spacing looks pretty typical of race seats to me.