Seat belts - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Starter986 · 05-01-2022, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ike84

Hah! Starter, nice to have you on board

!

For me, the real problem is this. I simply don't trust the seat belt in this car. Call me crazy but here's why...

The belts are 20 years old. The common argument that oem seatbelts live forever because they don't get exposed to the sun just doesn't apply. Show me a boxster that doesn't have a faded red buckle latch from uv radiation. Btw, if that plastic is faded, it's structural integrity is compromised.

The latch is bolted to the rail - yes, it's not unheard of. But no sanctioning body in racing is ok with this setup (except if the manufacturer did it!). I get the reasoning - the cars went through crash tests. But its just not kosher in mind. Especially when considering that....

The hardware is crap! I haven't disassembled the belt winder or outboard anchor yet, but the seat rail bolts aren't high grade. Off the top of my head (and I could definitely be wrong) I don't remember seeing any markings on these or the bolt that holds the buckle to the rails. This means that either they are standard grade or made in house (which I highly doubt). I was blown away to not see a 12.9 stamped on those bolts.

Let's face it. If we made this system, no racing body would let us run it. They do though since Porsche passed the crash tests, but the scope of those tests did not necessarily silly to how these cars are driven (on and off the street)

So what is the best (safest) thing to do here for a street legal setup? New belts and receptacles from porsche every few years ($800 for both sides) and replace all the stock bolts with metric 12.9s? Not even possible for the seat brackets unless you tap new threads.

Let's not fall to mention the fact that the airbag system in our cars should be considered "dated" at the least by today's standards

Or you can ditch all of this and go with a street legal 4 point ASM belt but with very little objective data to support superiority (or even efficacy) to 3 point belts and all the questions of submarining and neck injuries that go along with them.

I just don't know the right answer here, and I ****************ing hate not knowing....

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I cleaned up my faded red buckles with Back to Black. Made them 100% red and new looking. My continued safety is assured. Yours, too, can be. Back to Black.