I currently have stock seats in my dual purpose car. At the track I run a Brey Kraus harness bar and 3" SPARCO 6 point harnesses. The harnessses are attached to the rear seat belt mounting points.
I am getting some Recaro Pole Positions, and would like to also get a HANS.
My question is, do I still use the BK harness bar or is it now redundant. HANS recommends that your harnesses be no more than 3" apart. The BK bar's harness loops are about 7" apart. HANS also recommends that the harnesses be attached as close as possible to the HANS.
I'm thinking that I could continue to use the seatbelt mounting points and just run the harnesses BETWEEN the BK harness loops and that would be a reasonable solution. Alternatively, I could find a way to connect the harnesses directly to the BK bar.
Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Is getting a DAS rollbar out of the question? In my opinion, this would be the safest route. You could attach the harnesses to the rollbar and run them through the Pole Positions and have them fit properly with the HANS.

 

Guys, wait until the new PCA Club Race rules come out before deciding. It could be that all Club race cars including non progressed stock cars will need a full cage next season. I knolw You may not intend to race it ever, but the rules will be out after Nov 1st so i would wait until then. Scott on your TT what i did was install a complete duplicate of the factory Matter/Cup/GT2 cage in the 993. I can help You duplicate that if You like. YOu may remember the car it was Arena Red and had a 3.8 then I put the TT in it.

 

http://www.schroth.com/pdf/hans/06%2...er%20Belts.pdf

http://www.schroth.com/pdf/hans/06%2...h%20Straps.pdf

 

I cannot cage the car.
I need to put wee Gracie in the back seat to take her to school during the week.
(She is limber enough to scoot around the Pole Positions, which will be on sliders.)

I'm "only" doing DEs, but I want to get as safe as possible without ruining the car for the street.

Lewis; Thanks, It looks like I should be able to cross the harness over the BK and connect to the rear seat belt points according to the link you provided.

 

Do you remove the harness bar when 'wee Gracie' is sitting in the back? If not, head trauma may be greater in the event of a collision.

-Z.

 

Scott,

I've a similar set-up in my 911. I use the BK harness bar with my Heigo roll bar. I run the harness through the bar loops, then through the openings in the Recaro SRD seats.

I enter the car with the HANS attached to my helmet and slip the HANS & helmet on. I then bring the shoulder straps over the HANS on each side and tighted down the straps, making sure that the straps are over the HANS. Once on the track I will continue to make sure that everything is tight and that the straps are positioned over the HANS.

I understand that someone, (I don't know who), is marketing a clip or strap that connects the shoulder straps in front (i.e., on your chest) so that they will not slip off the HANS. The idea is not to have your straps meet, but to keep them parallel and tightened down over the HANS. I imagine that you could probably achieve the same result with a shoestring or a couple of those aluminum clips that rockclimbers use.

Good luck.

Richard

 

Why not have the guides from the harness bar removed and repositioned? (from 7" to 3" apart?)

 

Richard,
It sounds as though what you have described is a bit like a sternum strap.
I would be very reluctant to use that, since in an impact, as you come forward 8" or so as the belts stretch, you are likely to cause severe trachea damage if the device is mounted too high on the belts relative to the HANS.

This is mentioned in the HANS manual (pls refer to page 12):
http://hansdevice.com/owner_manual.pdf

 

Z-Man. Yup , the BK comes out as soon as I am in garage after an event
(Mom is a pediatric neuropsychologist and is a little PSYCHO about head injury.)

Tom: I hesitate to cut on or put a torch to the stainless steel harness bar. I think if I just go between the hoops I'll be fine. The hoops are there because a stock seat has no harness holes.

Richard. Are your hoops about 7" apart? Do you just run them straight from the hoops thru the seat without crossing?

 

Recaro Pole Position seats are great seats, however, this past weekend I was looking closely at them, and unless you are pretty short, a HANS device won't work with them. I'm 6'2" and the Pole Position cutouts for the harness shoulder straps are below the shoulder, that is, the straps have to come up to go over my shoulder. That doesn't work for a HANS where the straps need to come in through the seat roughly above the shoulders even with the upper edge of the HANS device, or no more than 1" below, which is still roughly the top of the shoulders. If you go to the HANS website and look at the owners manual, you'll see a picture of what I'm . So, as I consider moving from Recaro SRD's, which work fine with the HANS, to a racing shell, I need to take shoulder strap cutout height on the seat, versus my shoulders, ito account. So you should sit in the Pole Position seat, and ensure that the harness cutouts are at shoulder height if you intend to use a HANS device.

 

Scott:
Glad to hear you take the bar out if someone is in the back seat.

Have you considered using harnesses that have an H-strap? This ties the two shoulder harnesses together (positioned behind the seat) and keeps them from separating.

-Z.

 

Z-Man:Actually my harnesses DO have an H strap.

Bill:I'm ony 5'11 if I stand up really really straight.
Good point though. I have already ordered them though, so I'll have to see what's what when they arrive. Thanks for the heads up.
I'm reading page 7 of the HANS manual and it says belt can be level or up to 1" below the collar.

 

Scott,

Yes, I've not measured the distance, but that sounds about right (I'll double check when I get home this evening). I run them straight through the BK bar loops into the shoulder holes in the seat.

Richard

 

bill is right about the cut outs on recaro pole positions. that's why they have a HANS version with much larger cut outs. that said, personally i would not use harnesses if you don't have some sort of roll over protection. do a search and you will see tons of problems you can potentially run into if you use harness with harness bar. just my two cents.