THSCC Forums

Any recommendations on how I mount the sub straps on my Miata? My seats have a single hole in the bottom for the sub straps. There seems to be two ways to mount the belts.

1. Through the bottom hole as you would mount a 5 point harness.
2. Back under your legs to the lap belt mount points.

The materials that came with my harness basically ignore the sub straps in their wording and just tell you how to mount the shoulder and lap belts. There is an illustration showing the belt routing through the hole in the seat but there is no clarification if the illustrated harness is a 5 point or 6 point.

I'm leaning towards option 1, but there may be something significant I'm missing. I have the correct hardware to do it properly either way so that's not an issue.

There is some info on page 26 of the tech guide. Not sure if it's enough but it's a start.

http://www.thscc.com/timetrial/nonhtml/Tech_Guide.pdf

The GCR allows both



Was just wondering if anyone knows if one is "more better" than the other from experience. I'm likely going to just floor mount them tonight unless I see something that significantly sways me away from that before then.

Either way I'll be having Performance Chassis double check all my work after I'm done.

The logic I used when trying to figure this out with our car was what method would provide the least "slack" in the event it needed to actually prevent you from submarining under the lap belt. Since on our seats the entry point of the lap belt is above the base of the seat, if we sat on the subs we would be "lifted" in the seat slightly. Alternately, the sub hole in the seat was well positioned, and running the subs down through it and back to the lap anchors proved a better fit for our seats in our Miata.

Sitting on the belts also means you will ALWAYS be sitting on the belts. Even with disconnects, it's a pain to get to the anchor points in a Miata. Using the sub hole, you can just tuck the sub down through the hole when not in use (street).

YMMV.

_________________
Dustin Fredrickson
-- I'm a nobody --

Not to split hairs on the point, but as I understand it the 'submarine' belt is misnamed. It is actually designed to keep the lap belts properly positioned over your hips. If it were not, there the shoulder straps would cause the lap belts to 'ride up' when tightened.

FWIW, I agree they should be installed so you don't sit on them as Dustin suggested.

_________________
Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)