This has been covered before and I have trawled though the previous answers but an still stuck.....

bear with me this is becoming an essay

originally I was going for centrally mounted inertia belts and had everything set up for my beford rascal van seats. However, I then took the plunge and bought some cobra roadster 7's. Trouble is this has thrown my diamensions out and now the lower stalk from the original escort is too short and is too low to be used. You can just get the buckle in but no way can it be released easy and will be sure to fail the SVA.

So I am now considering other options:

1. source some different belts from a donor that have a longer stalk - are there any about? the escort one is about 10 inches - if any one knows it will save me going through lots of cars in the breakers.

2. move the mount bracket forward - but I'd rather not as I've panelled and would probally have to take the side panel off to get a welder to the back of any plate I weld in

3. go for 3 or 4 point harness system

I like the idea of the harness as it better siuts the seats. Has anyone passed SVA or has already used Harnesses with these types of seat:

The 450mm upper mounting point is giving me grief. Taking measurements last night the top of the slots in the seat seem to be 450mm form the block placed on the seat as per SVA manual. The bottom of the slots is less than 450mm.
(or am I not measuring this correctly!)

From a previous post it stated the slots count as the mounting points but if they are less than 450mm then thats no good as I will have to weld in post/bar's that is nearly to the level of the top of the slot. These post/bar's would be 70mm above the cross member. this is quite high and I am concerned about the leverage effect on it and the necessary bracing needed for SVA.

So if anyone has any opinions on this or has solved the problem please let me know. Any photo's would be appreciated

Cheers Chris

Not sure about mounting point measurements (I know there is something about it being mounted below a certain point if using harnesses... or is it above... sure someone else can help here). You can get through the SVA with 3 or 4 point harnesses but beware of the buckle type. I have read somewhere that SVA man doesn't like the quick release F1 style but favours the traditional push button style. This is a typical perversity of SVA, as surely they wouldn't put them on F1 cars if they weren't safe. Have a feeling it is something to do with being able to operate the buckle with one hand.

I thought SVA didn't accept race style harness catches, but on "A racing car is born" it showed him with racing harnesses, and he passed SVA, so who knows, maybe they changed them for the test.

Kingr

You can use harnesses so long as they have push button release, and are "E" marked.

Willans do them, available everywhere

ATB

Simon

I'm in the same boat as you Chris. I also found the measurments strange. I called Cobra and they said "The measurment is tight but they sell 100 seats a month and have only had a couple of SVA men knock them back". They also say if I need a back up letter or something like that they will supply. If you have the SVA block firmly pressed into the seat the measurment is Ok (I Believe).
On the monts, you will have to either fit strong monts above the chassis x member or fit a x mount between the roll bar at the correct hight and run the belts to this.
I am conviced the seats will pass with the mounting above the hight of the upper slot face.