Belt spacing for HANS in Euroswift SE-3

[Bob Coury]

Anybody have any experience with moving shoulder harness mounting points in an 88-89 Euroswift SE-3 FC car? Looks like the fuel filler neck may be in the way.

I am hoping to look at a few in the next two weeks and wonder what others have done.

[mblanc]

Heres what we did on a DB6 Swift

It may be similar, since the fuel filler appeared to be in the way also.

First, we converted from the 1/4" hardware to 5/16".
Next, welded a tube mount almost identical to the stock one(except for diam.) to the triangulated cross bar, on the inside of the bar, rather than on the outside like the factory mount.

Or maybe more simply put, just move the mounts to the other side of the bar, making the mounting pointrs narrower.

Then made two very small plates (actually 4, two each side) to connect the 1/4 & 5/16 two welded tubes together, giving the unit 2 x the weld area of the factory mount. These plates are one above and one below the mounting tubes, encapsulating the triangulated tube. the stock 1/4 mount only uses a bolt to secure the tie bars together, the inner 5/16" bolt ties the bars together, along with mounting the belts.

For the proper very slight rearward down angle of the belts, we mounted the belts on the bottom side of the tube mounts. We found this moved the belts from aprox 9" c/c to 6" c/c which I understand is the hans recommendation with 3" belts> (actually they said a 3" space between belts, which is the same thing).

This way there is no bar attaching the left and right sides, and not interfering with the fuel filling operation or removal of the cap.

There was a previous thread on this, that showed a porter designed bat that goes all the way across that will at the very least make refueling inconvenient.

This arrangement held up well in my recent hard shunt, though it was a rear hit, wich loaded the mounts upward.

Sorry no pics, digitally challenged.

Marc

[Bob Coury]

Thanks-I saw the previous threads. But a Euro has a fuel filler neck that extends about a foot above the tank-between the belt mounts. I will try to visualize what you have done.
When I see the Euroswift cars in person it will help. There are a few available right now for me to look at-I think they all have the same condition.

[TimW]

Here is a shot of what I did. Plan A was to drill the existing tubes and weld in the thick wall tubing for the belt attachments at the correct width, obviously moving them rearward. After runing some numbers we felt this would be stronger, using a slightly thicker wall tube for the cross piece than what we would have drilled through in the original tube. It was a bitch to weld the bottom portion of the notch, though.



Two things were done for refueling. I made a longer head rest to prevent me hitting the cross tube if I back it in somewhere, and made that removable for refueling. Additionally, I bought a $2.50 toilet riser extension that I put in the filler neck since my fuel funnel won't fit between the new tubes. Really not much any less convenient over not having the tube there when fueling.

Make sure whoever does the welding knows what they are doing. A failure here due to a poor weld will not be good; pay someone who welds on race cars for a living if you're not skilled at it yourself.

(yes, the belts are in the 'non-hans' position in this picture, car was at the fabricators for other reasons prior to the HANS getting purchased, so did all the mods in one trip)

[Bob Coury]

Tim:

Thanks to you as well. The Euro looks a little different. I may have to fab something-hope the filler neck that extends out well past yours does not pose to much of a problem.

[Ian McKechnie]

It looks like Euroswift later changed the design in that area. The cap of the fuel filler tube of our Euroswift 93T is only approximately 1 !/2 inches above the fuel tank. Here are a couple of pictures of it.

[Bob Coury]

Thanks Ian. Do you use a HANS? I was using one on a 97 Van Diemen-the center to center spacing could have been about an inch closer on that.

This is probably a dumb time for me to contemplate buying a racecar.

[Ian McKechnie]

Bob: We have not yet used a HANS, so I do not know if the current spacing would allow using one without some adjustment.