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They might care less, but if they told you the edge of the seat is in no way designed to withstand the loads of a seat belt running over it, that wouldn't be helpful?
I'm just trying to help... not my car... so carry on...
Maybe it's from my many years of racing that makes me not want to jury rig safety devices, but even that passenger belt above looks as useful as a lap-belt only: in a frontal impact you will slide to the left of the shoulder belt and eat the airbag full force. And considering the belt's anti-retractive function, I'd think that result of sliding out to the left would be almost guaranteed with the belt positioned near your waist's midline like that.
[QUOTE=pfbz;17915396]As this seems to be of interest, here is some follow up on my install...
I now have a fairly large assortment of rigid, semi-rigid and flexible OE style buckles as well as aftermarket extenders. I've tried several combos. What works best for me, in my car with my Sparco's is the OE buckles along with a high quality soft extender.
I can run the extender either through the side harness hole (works well for my wife or someone else on the smaller side) or over the bolster (works well for me or someone on the larger side). That said, I can use the through the hole and it's fine, just a bit less convenient, and my wife with the over-the-bolster, the belt also seems to fit just fine and not at all unsafe.
Also note that IMHO, the extenders I'm using are as safe as the OE buckles. Very well made, good webbing, over-stitched, nicely made tangs. I also have some ebay extenders that are not nearly as nicely made and with what looks like lesser materials. So if you do decide to get extenders, I suggest using sbepros.com. I'm sure there are other high quality ones out there, but these are pretty nice.
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No easy solution Paul. In either case (especially on the passenger side), the by-product of the belt extender is the fact that it now positions the shoulder belt at the waist line closer towards the center instead of coming fully across from one hip to the opposite shoulder. In my opinion, this will greatly reduce it's usefulness as the upper torso can now slip out of it much easier in a frontal or diagonal frontal impact. The buckle now connects closer to one's belly button vs. your hip as designed. In order for the shoulder belt to function as designed, it really needs to connect as close to the side of the seat (or one's hip) as possible. All thing to weight and ponder. If it was me, I would try to wedge the buckle about flush to 1/2”below the side of the seat between the seat and the console. Not sure if that's possible. Good luck getting it sorted.
Last edited by powdrhound; 01-19-2022 at 01:37 AM.
Here is the factory 996 GT3 setup. I'm going to try to lower my buckle as much as I can to get it close to this as long as it fits between the seat and console. It keeps the cross belt really close to the intended path so I like my solution. The belt extensions do seem to move the cross belt section too far inward though I have no idea if this is an issue.
No easy solution Paul. In either case (especially on the passenger side), the by-product of the belt extender is the fact that it now positions the shoulder belt at the waist line closer towards the center instead of coming fully across from one hip to the opposite shoulder. In my opinion, this will greatly reduce it's usefulness as the upper torso can now slip out of it much easier in a frontal or diagonal frontal impact. The buckle now connects closer to one's belly button vs. your hip as designed. In order for the shoulder belt to function as designed, it really needs to connect as close to the side of the seat (or one's hip) as possible. All thing to weight and ponder. If it was me, I would try to wedge the buckle about flush to 1/2”below the side of the seat between the seat and the console. Not sure if that's possible. Good luck getting it sorted.
I get the concern, but the photos are a little bit misleading as there isn't a person sitting in the seat making it look like the shoulder harness gets pulled significantly towards midline... With actual hips in the seat, the shoulder harness pivot is pretty close to stock position. Ideally, about 1" shorter on the buckle/extension combo would be better though.
Going even shorter and wedging the buckle between the console and the seat would improve the shoulder belt angle, but create an issue with the seat being able to slide back and forth, and with the buckets and non quick release steering wheel, I typically slide back to get in and out.
Another possible alternative would be to move the seat belt receptacle mount from the side plates that hold the seat (which moves with the seat as it slides back and forth) to the tab on the Sparco bases, which is fixed. This would essentially create more slack to attach the buckle easily when slid back, then retract the buckle and pull the shoulder harness more inboard when sliding up to driving position.
Also, going back to the rigid extender vs. flexible would help keep the shoulder belt pulled across, though possibly at the expense of less hip wrap on the lap belt. I'll try a few more tweaks...
Here is the factory 996 GT3 setup. I'm going to try to lower my buckle as much as I can to get it close to this as long as it fits between the seat and console. It keeps the cross belt really close to the intended path so I like my solution. The belt extensions do seem to move the cross belt section too far inward though I have no idea if this is an issue.
The irony is the extra space for the buckle when using the GT3 seats is *exactly* where the extra room is needed for many with those GT3 seats. The Sparco's give the extra hip room, but less of a gap for the buckle.
The Planted (Sparco) seat bases I use set the stock buckles just a hair below the GT3 buckle height seen above. It is a tight squeeze between the console but it works.
Just got my silver back from swapping it with a 2016 G63 the owner wants a 997 turbo and wanted to see what the P cars are about. The G and P can't be more different cars. I had a G350td many moons ago and loved it, thought it needed more power. The G63 has way too much power and too big wheels for my tastes. Think something between the 2 would be good. I did like the 7 speed auto transmission really low rpm's at highway speed.
Felt so good being back in the little car compared to the G and a new 992 turbo I encountered On the way home. From behind it looks like a spaceship, with massive tires. We couldn't do any stop light pulls since a cop was right behind us.
The 996 is as big as I think a sports car should be. The owner of the G63 now wants a 997 turbo.
Yeah, my wife and I have been back and forth on the next car. I believe we said something along the lines of, "the next car is a house." I mean, it's a fair point - I would love to have my own garage, and I've still got some "room" in terms of modifications left to do on the cars I already have.
Just did the exhaust (tip to butt) on the 4Runner - the V8 now sounds like it was supposed to...
01-18-2022, 11:24 PM
