Harness bar for 997 Carrera

[Yellow]

I've been looking for the least intrusive harness bar to fit to my 997 for the occasional track day. The car has carbon folding buckets fitted so there are openings to retain the shoulder straps.

There are some neat ones for the 991 that fit behind the rear seat backs, and still allow full use of the rear seats when not in use e.g:
FVD
TPC Racing

Has anyone found a source of similar rear seat harness bars for the 997? I was planning to try Custom Cages / Safety Devices / Parr / RPM and see what they say / could make something for the 997. I'm not a big fan of the Brey Krause bars as they would need taken in and out of the car after every track day.

For those that do run harnesses on track (GT3 crowd), do you also use a HANS?

 

[remarklima]

I was looking for something similar a while back, but I've been put off with the info that using a HANS system without a full cage / roll over protection could cause you more harm!

Basically, the thinking seems to be, if the car rolls over, the HANS will prevent your head from dropping, which is good unless the roof starts to cave in, and then it holds your head in place to get a beating.

A harness bar for just harnesses seems good, but then you also need the seats to have harness holes, as the standard seats you'd be able to slip out of the shoulder straps, which is also bad!

All in all, seemed to be a bit of a minefield - the lotus elise / exige is much easier with a proper roll bar, and not having to go full race car with the seats and cage!

 

[Yellow]

There is also lots of conflicting advice about what is more or less risk on the internet...

Seats are fairly straightforward for me, have a set of these in the car. Angle of the shoulder straps to the harness bar would be within the 30 deg allowed in the Schroth docs.

Re: rollover - there is a bit from the Schroth importer to the US here. Their stat is you are much more likely to be injured by your uncontrolled head with a 3 point belt than with a 4(/more) points and a solidly controlled head.

The HANS should definitely be safer / better than not with harnesses. Answering my own question, I suppose.

 

[Roro]

I've got something similar to this which I never ended up fitting, as I went for an agency power cage instead:

https://www.bkauto.com/R_1035_Harness_Mount_Truss_p/r-1035.htm

It's been gathering dust in my folks attic for a few (several) years, if you're interested PM me and I'll dig it out over the weekend. From memory this bar fits 997 coupe models as-is - I needed an adapter to fit it to my GT3 which was proving too difficult to source at the time hence ending up with a cage instead

 

[remarklima]

Those seats are lovely!

Is there anything that can be done with the stock seats to maintain the shoulder strap locations? Submarining / slipping the shoulder belts would be my biggest concern - as you say, a roll over is very unlikely. The US guys talk like it's a given ;-)

 

[Senoj]

I've been looking for the least intrusive harness bar to fit to my 997 for the occasional track day. The car has carbon folding buckets fitted so there are openings to retain the shoulder straps.

There are some neat ones for the 991 that fit behind the rear seat backs, and still allow full use of the rear seats when not in use e.g:
FVD
TPC Racing

Has anyone found a source of similar rear seat harness bars for the 997? I was planning to try Custom Cages / Safety Devices / Parr / RPM and see what they say / could make something for the 997. I'm not a big fan of the Brey Krause bars as they would need taken in and out of the car after every track day.

For those that do run harnesses on track (GT3 crowd), do you also use a HANS?

Yes on the Hans.

But, where are you going to attach the other four points of the harness? 991 owner asking similar question elsewhere btw.

 

[Yellow]

Good question on where / how to mount - my thoughts are in order of preference:

1.) Look for the threads to mount eye bolts (2x under seat, 1x tunnel & 1x behind the door) - might be only GT3s though, else

2.) BK make some particularly expensive adapters...
Lap belts are straight forward - R-9006 for the tunnel side, R-9003 for the door side to piggy back the regular 3 point belt mounts and use harnesses with clips. From this thread / JZM it looks like with different belt fittings you could simply bolt to the seat but leave permanently attached.

Sub mounts need a bit more research: either R-9032 (both sides), but they look like it might be vertically down / forward of the seat opening, seems a bit strange!. Else some of the flat schroth brackets should fit to the seat rails at the rear mount point.

3.) Use 4 point belts only and use something like the Schroth Quick Fit Pro to avoid the adapter faff

 

[Yellow]

Those seats are lovely!

Is there anything that can be done with the stock seats to maintain the shoulder strap locations? Submarining / slipping the shoulder belts would be my biggest concern - as you say, a roll over is very unlikely. The US guys talk like it's a given ;-)

Change the seats? Recaro Sportster CS are reasonably affordable else Jin (HSC911) has a few sets of the carbon folding buckets at the moment?

 

[remarklima]

Those seats are lovely!

Is there anything that can be done with the stock seats to maintain the shoulder strap locations? Submarining / slipping the shoulder belts would be my biggest concern - as you say, a roll over is very unlikely. The US guys talk like it's a given ;-)

Change the seats? Recaro Sportster CS are reasonably affordable else Jin (HSC911) has a few sets of the carbon folding buckets at the moment?

It get's pretty serious at that point really... It may be CG Locks for some basic trackday action before getting into anything major, at that point it's probably worth a dedicated track car.

They do look like great seats tho'

It's a shame as I'd have thought Porsche would have had a few more options for harnesses and the like.

 

[Yellow]

I spoke to Parr (who were very helpful) - summary was:
> They were not aware of anything off the shelf that could do this for either 997 nor 996. There was a question for those cars if you needed to use more than 2 points of support (e.g. half cage, the BK harness bars)
> Generally they wouldnt recommend having something fabricated by one of the roll cage manufacturers that was intended to leave all the interior trim unaffected as often when they turn up they the trim does need to be changed/cut etc.
> For safety devices they much preferred tried and (crash) tested solutions and recommend the Brey Krause products.

I'm now the proud owner of Roro's old harness bar!