SWB Harness Bar

[hoffman912]

Does anyone know of, or have any solutions for a swb harness bar? The only ones i have seen are home made and i do not have a welder to fabricate anything. does anyone know of one that exists or know of something that can be used?

[ttweed]

Harry,
I looked around years ago for some off-the-shelf solutions for this and couldn't find anything. All the prefabbed harness bars were for the LWB cars and required some fabrication/welding/customizing to work. Maybe there is something new on the market that is a simple bolt-on, but I haven't heard of it. I ended up going with a roll bar instead, to gain that additional safety factor for a little more investment and weight. There is one line of thought that says you shouldn't install harnesses in a car without a roll bar, as they maintain the driver in an upright position in a rollover situation which might crush the roof. Of course there is another that says that a roll bar or cage should not be installed in a street-driven car which you are going to drive without a helmet on.

May I ask why you want to change to full harness restraints? Which type are you considering (4-point or 5/6-pt.)? Are you combining this change with a race seat installation? There are multiple safety considerations to be made when moving away from stock restraints, not the least of which is the poor placement of the stock lap belt anchors in the SWB cars and the proper routing of the anti-sub and shoulder belts. Most all the DIY solutions require drilling the tub for new anchor points. Are you down for that? If so, the easiest solution is to locate new anchors on the floor for the lap and sub belts, and on the rear parcel shelf for the shoulder belts, using large backing plates and washers in each case. This will allow routing of the belts at the required angles according to the manufacturer's recommendations. If you are doing this for competition purposes, be sure to check the rules of the sanctioning body before committing to the mod--they can vary widely. Four-point belts are allowed in SCCA Solo racing here, for instance, but the Zone 8 PCA rules are much stricter now when it comes to harnesses--they require 5/6-pt. belts, and harnesses cannot be used with a seat that was not designed for them (including proper routing holes for the belts). I had to abandon my 5-point setup when they changed these rules and install a vintage 3-point setup in my '68 unless I installed a full race seat, as my vintage bucket seats were not designed with proper routing for the shoulder belts.

YMMV,
TT