FlyingDog

I received some money from my parents for Xmas for safety gear (they both think racing is too dangerous), so I have spent most of my boring day today at work looking at suits, helmets, and harnesses. I noticed on the Sparco site that they now have 8-points harnesses. There are 4 over the shoulder belts, two for holding you in and 2 for holding a HANS device to you.

http://www.sparcousa.com/pharness_comp.asp?id=566

Are these new? Does this make sense to anybody? If you use 5/6-point belts, you risk slipping through the belts when wearing a HANS. If you use an 8-point belt, you and the HANS stay in the seat but it seems like it would be a lot harder to escape the car.

RedlineMan

Well...

It's not new, but it is relatively unheard of. Some F1 guys did not like the "feel" of not having a belt directly on their torso. Schroth developed the dual setup in response to that. It does have some performance advantage over the more normal setup in terms of HANS retention, but it is fiendishly difficult to get a good setup for them.

Not really worth the trouble in my estimation. Making sure the rest of your setup is optimal is time better spent in my opinion.

Circuit Motorsports

I personally didn't like the setup that I sat in. That being said it does appear to me to offer some performance advantage. I never did test how it reacted to a quick exit scenario.

RedlineMan is dead on in recommending you optimize the harness system in your car. I'd guess that over half of the harness systems I've seen in the last year don't have the harnesses mounted in the ideal location for a HANS system. Often the spread between the harnesses is too much.

FlyingDog

I haven't decided what H&N restraint to get since I was planning on an Isaac. I'm looking at all the components at once so that I'm sure I'll have a package that works. As you both said, optimizing what I get to work properly is most important.

chrisp

I don't own one nor have I ever used one but....

double shoulder harnesses scare the heck out of me. It seems like the inherent horseshoe shape of a HANS Device could easily hook on a double shoulder strap in during emergency egress. Imagine trying to climb out of the car while being tugged on by the HANS which is hooked on your double shoulder strap?

chrisp

I'm selling my ISAAC link if you are interested.

SundayDriver

I looked at that setup. The dimensional requirements for exactly how and where you mount each belt, is very prohibitive. Unless you are building a car from scratch, or at least a cage, it would be very difficult to meet the mounting specs.

ltc

These were discussed (with pictures courtesy of FatBillyBob) a while back, at least the Schroth implementation:

https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-and-drivers-education-forum/313316-hans-double-shoulder-belt-schroth-harness.html

I saw these at HMSMotorsport, being setup for Penske in NA$CAR, very geometry sensitive.

fatbillybob

scroth was the originator of these belts. What is the relationship of sparco with scroth? Is this product made under license with scroth?

John Veninger

My ISSAC is also for sale. Will discount for a fellow 928 owner

chris walrod

Mark is bang-on (again) - we are incorporating this belt from Schroth into the new racecar we are currently designing. More of our drivers are asking us to retrofit our older racecars to accept such a belt.

In formula chassis design, one has the luxury of a seatback bulkhead that allows one to place shoulder belts virtually anywhere. This double shoulder belt does require more mounting area to work correctly in which a typical four seater roadcar doesnt have. Most use a lateral tube incorporated into the cage for mounting shoulder belts. There just isnt much real estate to mount such a belt. That said, I am sure a plate or panel could be integrated into such a steel tube cage that would accept this four strap shoulder belt arrangement.

I can post a few images Monday if anyone would like to see mounting examples.

Circuit Motorsports

Yes please. I have only seen them in tintop.

A bit off topic.

Another interesting thing I learned when talking to Willans rep at PRI. They only recommend the 2/3 belt for a HANS setup where the shoulder belts aren't optimally mounted. He said that if everything is mounted the way HANS recommends that they would use a constant 3 inch belt.

Thought it was interesting that Willans would say that.

FlyingDog

Chris and John, thanks for the offers but I think I'll be stuck with an SFI 38.1 device.

The 8-point harnesses make more sense for a formula car where track workers have access to the top and can push all the belts to the side easily. I have seen "Sparco/Schroth" listed a few places. Are they the same company or maybe Schroth makes Sparco's harnesses? Another odd connection I noticed is that most of the racing pictures in the harness part of Sparcos site are Sabelt harnesses, not Sparco.

RedlineMan

If I am not mistaken...

...Sparco is buying belts from Schroth now. I'm not sure it is all of them, but... I also don't know why they haven't updated their website. I haven't looked in a few months, but I gather that it is still showing the old "Sabelt junk."

As for the 8-point Schroth, I don't think I would use them with a HANS unless I had the quick release tethers. In fact, I think EVERY HANS should have them.

The damn things do get caught on stuff!

SundayDriver

I would really like to see those. Thanks