scoober101

Hey hey,

Couple Q's about Harnesses and Harness bars for '05 Wrx/Sti blobeye Scoob's with standard front buckets...

1. Are harnesses road legal to be used on public roads? If not, can you still have your standard seat belts installed alongside a harness or do they need the original anchor points?

2. If you dont have any rear seats or rear seat belts in a Scoob do you still have to install a harness bar that goes around the back of the front seats or can you do away with the bars and anchor the harnesses to points where the rear seat belt points used to be?

3. Any other info to consider regarding harness setups would be great.

Cheers, M.

Jamz_

iTrader: (12)

Yes the are road legal, just a nightmare doing anything on the road with them (checking your blind spot and what not)

Here's an interesting read for you
http://www.jamessimpson.co.uk/correct-harness-fitting

scoober101

Interesting read, thanks. Nice website btw!

Ive never taken the C pillar in the scooby apart before, is there a mounting bolt hole already there to anchor a harness?

Jamz_

iTrader: (12)

There was a group buy on those harness bars not so long ago:
These ones wrighty makes himself: https://www.scoobynet.com/group-buys...-bars-3-a.html

Or these ones from a company: https://www.scoobynet.com/849547-gro...livered-2.html

They just mount to your original bolts for your seatbelts (one at the top and another at the bottom)

Jamz_

iTrader: (12)

FYI https://www.scoobynet.com/private-fo...rness-bar.html

Steve Whitehorn

iTrader: (13)

1. Yes they are road legal and will pass an mot so you can dump your seat belts to save weight

2. You don’t need to install a harness bar. Some harness bars fit with certain cages and some don’t. Many people mount harnesses to the back floor. This is dangerous, as in a big accident you can snap your back. The harnesses need to mounted horizontally or 20degrees below your shoulder on to a harness bar or on to the cage at the back of the car

3. Rule is - harnesses and cage or seatbelts and no cage. Don’t mix and match the two.
Why?
(If you are strapped in with harnesses and the roof caves in, if you roll it, then you are knackered. If you have seat belts and bounce about a bit inside the car smacking your head into the roll cage as you roll it you again are knackered)

Welded in are stronger than bolt in - but bolt in will do.
standard Subaru seats only accommodate 4 point harnesses, which don’t get me wrong are good. But six point are better, as they stop you submarining, but will require the correct seat for them.

Hope this helps
Steve

Steve Whitehorn

iTrader: (13)

Just looked at Jamz´s links after tapping out the above - A good illustration of where not and where to mount harnesses. all about the angle of the straps from the shoulder.

Fat Boy

An additional point is that if you install harness bars, then don't think about taking anyone in the back as even if they are wearing seat belts they will bang their heads off the back of the front seats in an accident and the consequences of chinning a metal bar inf fornt of them would not be pleasant...

budd

iTrader: (5)

Harnesses are great for racing or serious track / off road use, where in conjunction with a multi point roll cage, well fitting fixed back seat and of course a helmet your pretty much as safe as it’s possible to get given the nature of the activity (even the HANS device previously the stuff of F1 is becoming a common sight now the HANS sport kit as brought the price down), So with all this kit you are now as safe as poss, on the track yes, on the road not necessarily, before we consider the interaction between the various pieces of hardware lets consider is the type of accident your likely to be involved in, on a track your likely to hit a tyre wall, pit lane wall, another car, roll in the gravel trap etc in all cases a well designed and built race car will offer the best protection.
The highways and byways of this fine country are a completely different thing, firstly you have incoming traffic, junctions, roundabouts, trucks, buses, taxis, harassed mums with cars full of kids, drivers on their phone, drivers in a rush, basically every possible situation that can occur will occur to someone at some point, you’d think that a race prepared car would be much safer than a normal road car but I’d argue that all the race derived equipment is more likely to increase risk of injury and death than decrease it.
Firstly you won’t be wearing a helmet on the road so the risk of hitting your head on the roll structure is very real, harnesses are designed to be worn tight so limit your ability to move around, to look and observe the road therefore increasing your chances of been involved in a accident due to poor observation, they also eliminate ‘wriggle room’ with a conventional seat belt it’s possible to contort into a space that a tight harness simply would not allow.

Modern cars are designed to a very high safety standard; I even read a press release from Volvo stating their aim that by 2020 ALL accidents involving Volvo cars would be survivable, that’s quite an objective and the fact they think it’s even possible says a lot about how safe modern cars are.

So whatever your reasons for fitting harnesses please consider all the implications, and if you do fit some fit them properly this definitely means loosing the rear seats to allow correct positioning of the mountings, as for using harness bars and retaining the rear seats consider the impact (literally) on the rear passengers.

Some accidents simply aren't survivable no matter what, but I firmly believe that in most circumstances (there are no absolutes here) that the standard safety equipment offers the best solution for road going cars.

Jamz_

iTrader: (12)

Excellent post there Budd.