Hi Don,

 

I just ordered three ships worth of seat belts/shoulder harnesses for myself, Larry Eversmeyer, and Ron Laughlin.  Hooker gave us the same price break.  Scott was great to work with.  My order deviated slightly from the others in that I am using two inertia reels per seat instead of just one.  This is not necessarily better, just individual preference which I will pay a weight (and price) penalty for.

 

I believe this seat belt/shoulder harness system is going to be great --- comfortable and safe!

 

One thing that concerns me a little about the write up Ron Brice did for your web site posting is that there are a lot of installation details missing.  It would not be "safe" for a builder to do the installation simply as Ron describes.  For example:

 

    1.  I checked with Steve Lorentzen on regarding the bid reinforcement for the phenolic block imbedded in the seat back frame.  He advised me to reinforce with stepped 6 to 8-bid on both the front and back sides of each block.

 

    2.  Additionally, the top of Ron Brice's seat back frame was reinforced to sustain the tremendous "G" forces that would be applied by the shoulder harness straps during a crash.  This was undoubtedly a critical component of Ron's shoulder harness system allowing him to survive his accident.  I spoke with Carsten Sunden quite some time ago when I was first exploring the idea of installing inertia reels behind the seats.  He advised he didn't think the seat back frames were strong enough to do such an installation without reinforcing the top of the seat back frame.  When I asked Steve Lorentzen how he reinforced Ron's seat back frame, he could not remember those details.  I am thinking of reinforcing mine with a piece of 2" X 2" X .125" wall high temp/strength square fiberglass tubing which will be bonded across the top of the seat back frame behind the rollover frame.  I'll further tie the tube to the seat back frame and rollover frame with bid layups.

 

Thanks,

John Kleber