Impressions:
Rollbar:
In a word...Awesome! Fitment of the Autopower bar is great. Mine arrived with the paint in pretty good shape, so it also looks pretty sharp in the car. The increase in stiffness of the car is very noticable. Not only are all the hatch area squeaks and rattles gone, there is just an overall feeling of solidity. No more creaks from the hatch when the car is on three wheels getting into the driveway.
Harnesses
So far I'm very happy with my decision to remove the stock belts. With the convenient camlock design, I can put 3 points in and it's just like a stock seatbelt. When you put all five points in and tighten down - you're not going anywhere! I feel good about having a well-known name like Simpson for my safety equipment too. Call me anal *shrug*. With a pair of 5-point harnesses, I should be good to go for just about any kind of racing for a while to come.
One note about having 5-points, I've noticed that the sub-belt does a great job of keeping the camlock in your lap, as opposed to up on your stomach when the shoulder belts are tightened. If I had it to do over, or to recommend to anybody, I would definitely recommend the 5th point for comfort, security, and so on.
After having raced with just the harness on a stock seat, I can say that it's probably sufficient for 95% of you out there. I autocrossed my car, and didn't move around at all. Having to run the shoulder belts around the outside of the seat was uncomfortable, but if you ran grommets like in the VFAQ, I think it would be a *very* good solution for most folks.
Seat:
Once again, I'm very happy with this upgrade. The seat I chose is very comfortable for me, and I was able to get myself an extra inch or so of headroom by mounting the seat as low as I could. Strapped in with my harness, you absolutely DO NOT MOVE.
The thing I really noticed was how light of a touch I could have on the wheel in turns, as opposed to the death-grip I must have been using before. The other major improvement was that under hard braking (6-piston Wilwoods generate some force!), I no longer slide down off the end of my seat! Hopefully that will give me some much-needed confidence in my braking.
There are a couple of downsides, I'd say. First is the amount of work this took! Another is that your DSM basically becomes a 1-driver car. Unless your friends are all around the same size as you, they won't be able to adjust the seat to fit them. As well, not having a seat that tilts forward might limit rear-seat access. (I have a harness bar in the way, so no loss there...).
On the whole, I'm very happy with the sum result of this project. Not only is the car stiffer, safer, and more comfortable than before, I also managed to drop a few pounds out of it in the process:
- +50 - Rollbar
- -xx - Stock belts
- -xx - stock seat
- +25 - OMP RS & brackets
- =
Hope that all helped!
Credits/Thanks:
A few folks worth mentioning here.
Rolando Rios - my best friend and best helper - he helped me with the cage install (along with countless other projets on this car.
I/O Port racing - I/O Port was great about customer service. After I placed the order, they e-mailed me to double-check the bar's specs. They called again when Autopower was ready to ship the bar, and generally rocked. Their website and FAQ's are also outstanding for learning as much as you can about real racing and safety stuff.
Grant & Doug at ASW - I didn't know a thing about how I was going to go about getting these things mounted, and they took the time with me to try some setups on the floor of their showroom. Pretty impressive service when they're surrounded by BMW, Audi and Porsche owners, and they take the time to help out the guy with the 13-year old POS Japanese car.
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