tall people cage questions (harness bar placement) Options

[smdubovsky]

Hi guys, been a while since I've posted. Im reworking the cage in the /6 to fit me better. When I bought it, it had a "short people" main hoop design;) The harness bar went straight across and the triangulation went the the upper corner. It limited the seat from moving back another 8+". The harness bar was also *WAY* too low. I'm 6'2" w/ long legs and need all the room I can get.

Here is what it looks like now (red = the bars I cut out, green = ones Im going to install)


Here you can sorta see how low the old bar was - below the door tops.


Ok, now here is my big question: Instead of the usual zig back behind the driver (tight against firewall), zig forward across the center firewall 'hump' (tight to firewall), and head straight across to the passenger side (w/ a gap to the firewall) - I want to do a zig back (tight to firewall), go THROUGH the hump, tight against passenger side firewall, and zig forward to the main hoop. This will be just above the existing fan cutout the POs did, and above the top of the fan housing (but not really as much as the pic shows). When the seat tilts back a little more, the shoulder 'wing' gets pretty darn close to the hump so there really isn't space to route the bar completely inside the cabin. I can't really bolt eyebolts to the firewall and forego the harness bar either - they'd get too close to the seat w/ the mounting clips and adjusters (which would then actually be sitting on my shoulders.)

Heres s shot of where I want to cut though the 'hump' to put the harness bar.


I'd leave ~1/8" between the firewall and bar behind the seats so I could still wrap the harnesses around.

Thoughts? Has anyone done this? I'm not racing this car so I have *NO* class rules to follow, but thoughts about legality if I ever get rich and change my mind would be interesting;) I think if I did a larger cover w/ ears and sealed it well, it wouldn't really count as another point.

[smdubovsky]

And here is the seat mounting. Since this will be a street/DE car I wanted to use sliders. Being 6'2" thats not an easy thing to do. So I sunk the rails into the floor by ~3/4". I used 2.5" rectangular tubing, sliced in half, and created U tracks. I also welded a tube across the bottom of them for the sub harness.

BTW, I welded a shorter piece of sq tubing under the car that slopes back up to the firewall. So the bottom of the car has a very shallow 'V' instead of an abrupt lip at the rear of the sliders. I was worried if I spun backwards over a curb it would be better to have a shallow ramp than a sharp edge though would rip the pan off the car. (I don't have a pic of those at the moment)

BTW2, its just (bad) flash rust on the front part of the pan. Its all cleaned up, zinc phosphate etched, and rattle can painted now.



I cut the 'hump' over the tunnel flush w/ the edge to mount them as close to the center as possible.



The seat mount very close to the tunnel.




W/ the seat all the way back there is ~1" from the seat 'ear' to the hump. A 'ziged' harness bar would have never fit - esp one w/ ANY gap between the bar and the hump.. There is <1/4" from the seat back to the lower part of the firewall. The upper part of the seat ALMOST touches the harness bar and is ~1/2" from the upper part of the firewall just under the rear window. It can't go back any further;)





BTW, The seat bottom has ~1/4" gap from it to the floorpan. The sparco sidemount mounts themselves limit that. My bum is ~3/4" off the floorpan w/o a cushion. It allows me to pass the 'broomstick test' w/ a helmet on by ~1/2".

In retrospect, the only downside to this is that I sit ever so slightly under the main hoop. Proper assymetric FIA padding JUST pushes my helmet forward slightly . Im not about to cut the main hoop just to angle it back another 1/2" though.