Can I Mount My 4 Point Harness Like This?

[MBS206]

Hey all.

Picking up a 4 point harness on Wednesday, but I'm just wondering, how do I go about mounting it all up? I'll be keeping my back seat IN, and be mounting the main part on the back on the parcel shelf. But how do I mount the rest of it?

Thanks

Car is an R33 GTS-t Series 1

[lukits01]

I have a floor brace in the rear footwell

What do you guys think if I mount the rear of the harness on that?

too much angle?

[GTRgeoff]

Yeah too much angle.

In the track GTSt I took the rear shelf out to use FIA plates under the shelf with eyebolts on top, but in the GTR I use eyebolts straight into the stock seatbelt mounting points.

[Syphon]

Can anyone confirm that mounting shoulder straps on rear seatbelt mounts is acceptable and would pass scrutineering at a CAMS/AASA event?

I understand you have to be within a certain angle, has anyone had any major issues and had to screw around and strengthen/mount on parcel shelf....

[Beer Baron]

hi, if anyone needs one of those "L" shaped brackets to mount the inner, lower strap of the 4 point harness to the trans tunnel without having to drill a whole I may have a couple spare. I bought a few in japan as they are hard to find here, and farken handy for mounting a harness in your skyline. just pm me and I'll sort you out.

[nismoman]

Mounting the harness from the lower rear seatbelt mounts is ok.

It is within the angles specified in the CAMS manual.

Its stong as! it passes crash tests from the nissan factory and is within the angles set by CAMS. In my S14a I use the rear lower seatbelt mounting points.

I looked into mounting my harness from the parcel shelf using a 5mm backing plate. There was room to do it, but the parcel shelf itself is made of the thinnest bit of sheet metal I have ever seen. I reckon you'd rip it to shreds and pull the backing plate right through it if you had an accident.

Edited January 29, 2007 by nismoman

[lukits01]

would anyone be able to get me these "L" brackets for cheap?

or point me in the right direction where I could get them?

[djr81]

I used bolts that replace the normal ones in the floor. The normal bolts secure the buckle & the bottom of the lap-sash belt tot he floor. You replace them with eye bolts & hook the harness into the eyes.

[Beer Baron]

parcel shelf is a bad idea mate. it's too high for one thing and it's very weak. also there is a thread on this topic in the motorsport section.

[djr81]

Good will check that out. I was wondering more so how people anchor the shoulder belts, not the lap belts.

[Beer Baron]

shoulder belts are done the same way as you described. purely as those two anchorages are load tested and re-inforced since they were desinged to take the standard seat belt anchorages. lap belt i remove one bolt holder the little rail thingy and replace with eye bolt. the inner mount is a bit tricker and the only sure solution is to drill a hole and weld a plate on the other side, but it's not very nice to your car, or very neat.

[Beer Baron]

hmm, well i merged the threads but it seems all of MBS206s posts got lost somehow.

[djr81]

Hmm, I will take a proper photo of my car & post it (after easter). But as I said the eye bolts just go in place of the usual retaining bolts. On both the outside & the inside.

Edited April 5, 2007 by djr81

[Beer Baron]

so the inside one you are screwing into the seat? that should be ok but with a race seat of course that's not an option. the harness needs to be fixed to the car body at all 4 points. hence the need for the bracket on the inside mount as there isn't a bolt there (it's a stud).

[djr81]

I am going from memory here, so I may be compeltely wrong. (As opposed to not going by memory & being completely wrong anyway, which happens to me a lot these days)

Anyway if you look at the bottom left hand corner of page BF70 of the R32 Gt_R manual. It replaces the anchor bolt on the seat buckle which goes into the seat rail according to the drawing.

You probably have a point about the location, but they never seem to have a problem with the lap sash done that way...

[Roy]

Not a great idea fastening it to the seat. In the event of an accident the seat is the most likely point of failure. Hust like in race cars they dont mount harnesses to the chassis, but instead they mount the seat to the cage and the harness to the cage. Car can distort but the cage is designed to protect the passenger cell

[djr81]

Well fair point. I was working on the idea that I would fit a harness & seat to my new car. Unfortunately it looks like I will have to do some more work as I want to keep the lap/sash arrangement as well as a harness. The buckle being attached to the seat frame complicates things if you want to replace the frame with a fixed side mount system.

Edited April 5, 2007 by djr81

[Beer Baron]

yeah i dont use the lap sash bet with my cobra race seat. for 2 reasons. 1, they are not designed to work together. if I was wearing the standard belt and had a head on impact i would submarine my way under it. and 2, there is no where to fit the inner buckle/clasp.

for me: regular seat i use regular belt

race seat i use 3 inch 4 point harness.

[djr81]

Well they are the other two problems.

Because my thing isn't as race orientated as yours & becasue I have to travel a bit to get to the circuits I wanted to retain the normal belts. I have seen this done with fixed back seats but you have to be a bit careful in the selection. Not sure how to get around the side mount/seat buckle problem, however.

Submarining is why I don't want to use a 4 point harness. I find they ride up on my guts too easily (maybe my guts wobble too much over the bumps or something) hence I wanted to use a proper 6 point harness. Hell if you are going to be strapped in you may as well be STRAPPPED IN.

[Beer Baron]

yeah, the only reason i haven't gone 6 point is i didn't want to drill a hole in the floor. the way my side strips go with the fixed seat submarining shouldn't be a problem. with a stock seat though it definately would be (no harness guides to keep the belt down low).