Quote:
Originally Posted by 78F350
Thanks. I hadn't considered it all together as a system and wasn't even sure what a HANS was until after Tom brought it up. Now I realize that my new seat isn't a true racing seat, but built to look and feel like a race seat for the street.
I'll have a good talk with the track officials next weekend about my cars and goals, then start making a better plan.  |
I've seen some folks run that seat (or one similar to it) - Sparco makes a good seat and yours looks like a hybrid - it can recline for comfort, but also has good bolsters and shoulder support. It looks like it has a pass through in the cushion for a 5 or 6 pt belt.
You can run that seat with your OEM seat belt and it will still provide some lateral support during maneuvering. One trick I used to do when I was still on the OEM seat was like this:
- Move the seat back a click or two
- Fasten the OEM seat belt as tight as I could, and then jerk the shoulder belt to lock up the inertial reel
- Move seat back up a click or two to the original position. This locks the shoulder belt and keeps it tight so you don't move around as much
When you do get to installing a 5 or 6 point harness, I agree with the other folks on this thread, and I too would recommend getting a HANS device with it. I'm not sure if the airbag would reach back far enough to protect the head if you are belted in a 6 pt harness vs OEM 3 point belt, but check out this video of a rally car that gets into a relatively low speed impact. The passenger has a HANS device, the driver does not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steved0x
I'll add to that, even without harnesses a race seat will hold you a lot better than the regular OEM seat.
Race seat + harnesses == fantastic! It took me a long time to unlearn clenching and bracing my legs for support and the death grip on the wheel to hold myself in place.
If you go with harnesses, I would add a HNR device (Hans, NecksGen, Schroth, etc) and also the BK roll bar extension - those harnesses hold you very upright in the seat and in the case of a rollover, you need that extra protection/headroom, and in an impact, the HNR device will keep your head from snapping forward.
I don't know if the airbag would deploy back enough to keep a person's head from snapping forward like in the below video, so it may not be as critical in a street car with an airbag... But dang...
https://youtu.be/g40YatgE_CE
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