Harness mounting points
 

Hello,

I’m shopping around for seats and harnesses for my GR86.

I’ve seen a couple of options for a harness bar. I’ll be removing the back seats entirely and want to make sure I have as much space as possible to carry track tires and my track stuff (tools, jack, helmet, canopies, cooler, chairs, etc.) as well as necessary travel/camping stuff for track day trips out of town.

What are the safest but least intrusive bars/harness mounting options out there?

None.

It's not a great answer, but I would never trust a Harness Bar. Many sanctioning bodies are not allowing solely harness bars to be used because they are simply not safe.

I've seen no actual evidence they are not safe. Granted I wouldn't run one.

They are meant to be used with a harness in a fixed back seat, if the roof comes in while you're strapped in an immovable position you're going to get shortened by a couple of inches. A roll bar is meant to keep the roofline above your head.

No sane organization is going to allow a harness + fixed back seat in a car without at least a roll bar.

A lot of them do, SCCA being one. Believe me, I am not a fan of it, but I have never actually seen evidence that running one is bad. Reports of an accident, ect. Enough people do it, and as long as the internet has been around I figured I could find something, at least a second, third, or 4th hand account, but nothing. I hunted for a long time when deciding what to do, I chose a 4pt weld in. A lot of info has been perpetuated, but no actual evidence. It is like all those that say OE seats are designed to fold back in an accident, 100% myth.

You really shouldn't be running a fixed back seat with a harness without a HANS either, but I can probably count on 1 hand how many people have them when I am at a track day. HOD is the only one that mandates a HANS with a harness in my area.

Safety debate aside, the least intrusive harness bar I've seen is the Brey Krause one, which can be ordered from OG Racing.

I'm no expert, but I came across the same debate in the past. One piece of supposed evidence was the Mustang rollover in Hallett Circuit. Reading the description it had a bolt in cage (not clear if it's only a half cage or a full one. The two photos showing the car in profile don't show an A pillar bar, but it might be hidden) and looks like it had racing seats (presumably fixed).
The cage "legs" broke through the bottom of the car, the roof completely flattened and yet both driver and passenger were not injured.
Not sure which side of this argument this crash actually supports more, but I'll leave it here as food for thought.

I haven't seen any evidence of it actually occuring either, which you would expect to find at least something.
OP: if you go the roll bar route make sure to do your research about attachment points. I've seen pictures before where the bottom plate was too small and just punched through the floor in a rollover.

That's the one I was thinking of. As I recall it was a 4 point rollover hoop.

The argument that it supports is doing proper research. Sounds like a lot of bolt in bars for a lot of applications look good but provide little to no actual safety benefit.

Yup, seen that one before. That can happen in a weld in bar too if you don't have a base plate that distributes enough load over a wide enough area.

Man o man. Good stuff.

I have a roll bar in my Miata…thought I wouldn’t need one in a car with a hard top. The more you know. I guess it’s time to look for roll bar/cage and for a shop to have welded in.

Any recommendations?

For sure, but that doesn't help with the actual question of whether a roll bar is really required with a harness and a fixed back seat (or it actually implies that it doesn't matter as the driver and passenger suffered no serious injury).

I think the main problem is that the racing aftermarket isn't big enough for serious research into safety and most of it is done by a mix of instinct, limited testing (probably FEA and some small scale destructive testing) and real world experience of crashes. On top of that, I'm sure motorsport related accidents are a drop in the sea vs. street accidents, so it's hard to gather solid statistics about the effectiveness of various safety equipment (vs. what is available to the NHTSA and IIHS, for example).

My personal take is mostly a black and white approach - for my light duty HPDE I won't go above a helmet (and planning on a Hybrid S 3 point compatible HANS). Then it goes to racing seat + harness + half cage + HANS + no street driving and towing to the track with no middle ground (which I probably will never do). But each person has a different set of risk/reward calculations.

Interesting. I see a lot of people with hans and simpson’s hybrid hans at my track days. I have a simpson’s hybrid…would not dare wear a harness without it.