It's time for some restraints. What I
mean is I'm going to install some seat belts. The
seatbelts are going to end up being a five point harness made by
M &
R Products which also makes other safety equipment. The reason for the
five point harness instead of just lap-belts is because the NHRA rule
book states that if you have a roll cage, you must have a quick-release,
3" wide shoulder harness meeting SFI 16.1 specification. The driver
restraint system must be clearly labeled as meeting SFI Spec 16.1 and be
dated by the manufacture. Now for me to be able to run at the track, I'll
be required to have this system and have it updated at two-year
intervals from the manufacturer. This means that I'll have to send the
whole harness back to M & R Products to have them check it out and
make sure everything looks good or do some work if need be and then they
would send it back and recertify it for two more years. Now this process
would cost me 35 bucks for the new certificate plus shipping which is
much less than a whole new harness. I chose
purple out of nine total colors that they have which is one of the
reasons I went with these guys. Most other manufactures only have red,
blue or black to choose from which is fine for most folks but I wanted
something a little different....no surprise here....right?
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I had two choices for a latch system
and I choose the Rotary cam style in place of the duck bill lever latch
type. With a 90 degree turn in either
direction, all the belts come loose and your unhooked. It's also very
easy to latch them all into place as they click-in like a modern vehicle
does. The hardware is all stainless steel and has hardened pins for the
latch mechanism. The leather pad is to distribute out the load area around
the latch in case of a sudden stop.
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To hold the harness in place, I bought
some Grade 8 hardware to handle that. You don't want a bolt to break in
the event that you end up testing the harness in a crash (reaches over
and knocks on wood in hopes that it never happens).
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Here you can see the harness in place
and ready for action. For those that don't know much about this system,
I'll break it down for you. First we have a right and left lap belt, two
shoulder straps and one submarine belt. The submarine belt is to keep
you from sliding downward and is the only one that is 2" wide. All
the others are 3" wide. I drilled a hole under the seat and through
a chassis cross member to mount the crotch strap to. That cross member
just happened to be in the right spot so I took advantage of it.
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