Harness bar without rollcage
 

Wasnt sure if the Interior Forum was best place to post but....

I really want to put a full 4/5 point belt system in the Cuda, but dont want a full cage.....it wil be a street car, so I'm worried about the whole "smack your head" deal etc......but thats a whole 'nother discussion :)

Right now my plan is to do a "road race" style cage......main hoop, removeable crossbar, downbars to the trunk etc, but was trying to come up with an idea to have a crossbar for the belts but no main hoop etc etc....

I remember one car on here quite awhile ago that had the crossbar integrated into the structure near the quarter window.....

My Camaro has the "road race" cage and my head isnt very far from the upper part of the main hoop and now that my kids are getting bigger, the downbars in tha back are making me more nervous too......

Look at Kyle Busch's car on DSE site. I think they did a harness bar by reinforcing the B pillar

Billys charger has a harness bar thats connected at roof and b-pillar. I'm also looking into doing one for our new 67 Chevelle project

Yeah I saw Bills Charger at SEMA last year and was interested in maybe doing it like that too..... it at least removes the top of the main hoop and the rear down bars.....

i checked out the busch car, any pics of the charger?

Ned,

We integrated one in to my chassis/body on my 69 camaro. I drew up some rough pics and sent it over to Mike Riggs he ran with it while preparing my sheet metal body . He had so many pics up on his website but took them all down. Im looking at this one pic of the car with no rear quarter on it and said to myself, how cool would it be to add a solid 1 inch bar from the b pillar to the end of the quarter where the striker is bolted in all reinforces with 1/8" plate and a 1/4" tab welded to the bar to protrude out a slot in the top beauty reveal. A couple of cletes in the trunk and the bar has storage as well. Its not for everyone but my logic is, Im not going through the windshield in the event of a front end collision and dont want a 3 point harness. Should hold you in the seat firmly during vigorous driving excursions. I wish I had the pics when Mike had the quarter open, here's one that gives you an idea. If you look closely at the right corner of the pic you can see the bar going to the b pillar, clears all the quarter window hardware nicely.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...cture193-1.jpg
Rich

obviously some reinforcement is needed where the mount is welded, but do you guys think we (the ones with quarters on) could do without the extra reinforcing bars that we've seen. my thought would be yes since the stock belts mount through sheet metal and the piece we are talking about isnt a flimsy piece and it is welded to tons of stuff around its perimeter.

thoughts?

Rich
That's simiar to what they did on the Kyle bush car. I'm leaning towards doing that.... I looked at that area yesterday and it looks like it wouldn't be too hard to reinforce that area even with the quarter panel on. In my car there's quite a bit of space in there and the access to get in there isn't too bad

I've been thinking about how much force it would need to support and if you look at the way the stock upper belt attaches to the c pillar area, it ain't too beefy up there :) and neither is the floor for that matter

When it comes to safety it's always better to over engineer something but in my mind alot of extra bars etc wouldn't really be necessary. A big flat plat the distributes all that force over a large area and the way the b pillar and inner structure all connects it's pretty stout to begin with

I think something pretty stout could be done with the quarters on. With the DSE car the took the top part of the b pillar off to get better access but did it with the quarter on

ned, not to derail, but i think your thoughts are in line with mine; kids equal no roll bar but i still want the harnesses for the autocross and any other spirited driving. but what do you do about shoulder belts when the kids are in the car? i drove the chevelle for 5 years with lap belts only, but i wouldnt ever do it again. whats the solution? a removable bar makes the kids safe, but how do you quickly get yourself a 3 pt?

I was planning on doing some stuff to reinforce the package tray with either a bar under it/inside the trunk and/or adding a big flat plate under the tray and then bolt through it. Then a 4 point harness for each passenger

The principle is the same..... Take the force placed on that one attachment and spread it out over a large surface area. No different than the way the stock belts work

Look at the stock belt hole in the floor..... It usually just has a big flat washer or plate to reinforce the floor