Sparco harness bar and 4 point harness belt

So i have the privaledge to getting these discontinued goodies for a good price. Thoughts on a harness bar and belt? Never did research on them before, but is it a waste of money or are they useful even for DD?

The only thing i know is that you need the bar with the belt because the support is necessary.

I have to head off to work, but if the bar is what I'm thinking, it can be incredibly dangerous. If you're t-boned, and the bar buckles towards the rear of the car, it'll crush ribs if not worse.

Also, 4-point harness gives your body exactly one escape route: into the footwell. Not saying that always happens, but you really want a 5- or 6- point.

Finally, harnesses are never legal to wear on the street, you have to keep your OEM. They make it pretty much impossible to move your body, so you honestly cant check blind spots very well, or maybe not even reach radio buttons etc... (esp if you have t-rex arms)

The only safe way to use a harness is with a purpose built cage. One that is built to fit you, will not fit me. There are many factors that come into play and lots of horror stories. Just like Grinder said, if you are t-boned, the harness bar becomes a safety hazard.

There have been instances where the bar has buckled forward, snapped, come through the seat and impaled the driver. If the bar is not installed at the proper height (too low) and you have a front end collision, the harness tries to straighten out under the tension of your body weight, forcing your shoulders down and compressing your spine.

If the harness is not perfectly tight, you can end up smashed in under the steering wheel.

One of the biggest hazards is being crushed by the roof. If you roll over with a harness and bar, the roof still collapses in because there is no cage. With a normal seat belt, you often end up slumped over the gear shift. With a harness on, you can't slump over and so your head and neck gets crushed by the roof.

Cheap cages are not a great idea either. Steer clear of the simple bolt in applications. If it's not welded into frame hard points, don't trust it. There is a good video online somewhere of a Mustang with a bolt in roll cage. He rolled (of course) onto the roof and the bolted in sections of the lower roll cage punched through the bottom of the car, allowing the roof to collapse anyway.

Like Grinder said, with a properly adjusted harness (and helmet), you can't move around much. This is why when you watch racing on TV and they show the cockpit camera, you will notice the rearview mirror is often a huge shaped lens that allows you to see into your blindspots without turning your head. This is why harness use is not legal for public highways.

Lastly, this might be obvious, but just in case... If you do install a harness bar, allow no one to ride in the back seat with the bar installed. Even if they are buckled in, there is a good chance that their face will impact the bar during an accident.

So there is no reason why one would have a harness bar and belt in a street car then. Well with this newfound insight, why do people still have them?!?! :doh: i guarantee not everyone knows this and bought it for looks...

:ty: you both. Now i know i will never need this shit! :tup:

http://jalopnik.com/5390929/mustang-crash-gallery/

^ This mustang is the one with the bolt in roll cage.

Yeah, I would assume that if someone has a harness bar, they either aren't aware of the safety concerns or just have it installed "because race car".

They pretty much summed it up.
I drive around with a 5 point in one of my jeeps. Range of motion is none when properly adjusted, almost claustrophobic.
That mustang was at my local track. Lucky he didn't have his head squashed like a melon.

Spamby said:

They pretty much summed it up.
I drive around with a 5 point in one of my jeeps. Range of motion is none when properly adjusted, almost claustrophobic.
That mustang was at my local track. Lucky he didn't have his head squashed like a melon.

Click to expand...

Now that I think about it, I believe you were the one that showed me those mustang pics a couple years ago.

Wow! That roof almost became flat!! Within inches away! Did the guy survive without a broken neck?

Jalopnik says:

The Hallett/CarFX project Mustang — featured on the December '09 cover of 5.0 Mustang — dramatically flipped over a tire wall at Hallet Circuit in Oklahoma this weekend, ending up on its roof. Actiongasmic crash gallery below.
View gallery ?
The accident apparently happened at turn eight of the track, and the results, as you can see from the gallery above, couldn't be any more dramatic. After ramping the tire wall, the car planted nose-first into the ground and flipped forward, coming to a halt on its roof. You can see in the post-pancake-flipping images that the bolt-in roll cage simply punched through the floor, completely failing in its duty.

Incredibly, neither the driver nor passenger were injured in the accident. Reminds us why we prefer weld-in cages with big thick contact pads.

Wow they are lucky.

Any idea on average, how much a proper roll cage costs?

No idea.

Its gotta be a few grand right? Somewhere around 2k?

A couple of grand depending on factors like material and how many points of triangulation you want.