After 7’s Day, the next big event was Wekfest, which was really my first car show of the year. Before the show there were a few things i wanted to take care of, not huge things, but they needed to be checked off my To-Do list. First up was finally installing my RE-Amemiya front tow hook. I dragged my feet on this one because i was a little hesitant to cut my front bumper. I eventually gave in because i knew i needed it in case i ever had to tow my car, i would have nothing to grab onto because i removed the OEM tow hooks. The install was fairly easy, but required removing the front bumper which i had to do to fix my coolant leak, but more on that later. Once i figured out where the bracket was supposed to be mounted, i just used a marker to mark the inside of the bumper where i would need to drill the hole. The cut wasn’t exactly on point, but it was close enough that once installed you couldn’t really see the hole which is what i was aiming for. Ultimately i was planning to bolt a tow strap to the mount, but since i hadn’t found one with a bolt hole large enough for my RE mount, i decided to just use the hook that came with it for the time being.
Here's a picture of the mount installed without the tow hook that came with it. Instead this is the bolt/spacer setup i made to accept tow straps.
As mentioned previously, i had a coolant leak that needed to be fixed, which is why i took my front bumper off to begin with. When i first put the car together, i wasn’t able to find a good radiator hose due to the custom radiator set up. I ended up using some old hoses with a pipe extension to connect two separate hoses. That’s where the leak was coming from. To fix the problem, i picked up a flexible radiator hose from Pegasus Auto Racing. It had enough flex in it that i could make it work with my set up. I’m glad to report that since i replaced my radiator hose i haven’t had any leaks! In addition, i no longer need to constantly check/refill my coolant! I once thought that my engine was eating coolant and would require a rebuild because i had to keep adding coolant every so often. Looks like my engine is healthy *knock on wood*.
Next on the To-Do list was getting a harness to go with my new roll bar setup. I scoured the internet for months trying to decide which harness to go with. Although i had originally wanted Takata harnesses, the whole sponsorship thing left a bad taste in my mouth so i decided to go with someone else. I was looking for a blue 6 point harness as ultimately i wanted to be able to use these on the track and i’ve heard 4 point is not always accepted. A few of the brands i was considering were Schroth, Willans, and Sabelt, with Sabelt being my top choice. Unfortunately, after i contacted Vivid Racing, i was told everywhere was out of stock and it would be months before they could get anything with everyone in Italy being on holiday the month of August. At this point, i was pretty much settled on going with Willans since they had blue harnesses and Pegasus Auto Racing seemed to have plenty in stock. In one last desperate attempt to find Sabelt harnesses, i hit up eBay (i know, i know, but as i already said, i was desperate!). To my surprise, i found Hoerr Racing Products, a legit auto racing products distributor, was selling 6-point Sabelt harnesses in blue with the only caveat being they were bolt in and not clip-ons. I contacted them directly via phone and they confirmed they had them in stock. To really sweeten the deal for me, they found out that the harnesses were old stock and were expiring in 2019 so they knocked off another $80 off their normal price...each! Since i wasn’t planning to race the car in sanctioned events, having dated harnesses wasn’t really a concern for me, especially since they were brand new anyway. After rationalizing to myself that bolt on would serve my needs better than clip ons due to the lack of space in the FD cabin, i jumped on it and ordered two sets.
I love unboxing photos...the suspense!
I managed to get the driver’s side harness installed in time for Wekfest, but didn’t get around to the passenger side until afterwards. I did as much research as possible to ensure i was installing the harness correctly. A couple tips for people looking to do the same:
1. If the should straps extend back past the seat more than 18 inches to where they’re secured, the straps need to be crossed (X)
2. Make sure the mounts have collars that allow the harness to swivel from the mounting location.
3. If bolting through the floor pan, use back plates underneath the car with a nut welded onto it to evenly distribute the pressure.
Luckily my Bride seat rail had mounting provisions for the lap belts which made installation a breeze. The hardest part of the install was measuring and drilling holes for mounting the substraps. As mentioned above, i installed back plates underneath the car which was a huge pain trying to do by myself. I ended up using a jack underneath the car to hold the back plate in place so i could bolt in the strap mount from inside the cabin. The last order of business to complete the harness install was finding a way to secure the shoulder straps that were wrapped around my rear harness/strut bar. (On a side note, typically you’re not supposed to use the rear strut bar as a harness bar since the OEM FD bar isn’t strong enough to withstand the force of impact created as a result of a crash, but Samberg provides a replacement strut bar that doubles as a harness bar with new mounts that are strong enough to support a harness.) I had originally ordered foam designed for wrapping around the rollbar to protect people from possible contact with the steel bars. I was planning to cut a small piece and put it between the straps wrapped around the harness bar, but while doing some google searches, i found a picture of a Ferrari with a roll bar and a harness wrapped around it. At first it looked to me like there were special mounts created for each wrap, but later i realized it was simply two c-clamps on each side of the strap which prevented and side-to-side movement. The setup looked much more legit than my ghetto foam padding so i measured my bar and ordered some c-clamps for it. This is what i ended up with:
Foam Pad Setup
C-Clamp Setup
The hard mounted c-clamps really give me more piece of mind that the straps are fully secured, which is crucial with any safety related components.
And here's the harness installed
I really pleased with how it turned out. Turns out the whole Takata debacle was a blessing in disguise because i'm really happy with the Sabelt harnesses in terms of quality, color, and style. The finishing touch to complete my harness set up was to install the matching Sabelt tow strap to my front RE-Amemiya tow hook. I was so stoked when i found out Sabelt offered a two strap with a big enough bolt hole for my RE tow hook mount, that i ended up ordering two straps, one blue and one red, for when i want to change things up a bit. Technically, the Sabelt tow strap is not part of Wekfest prep since i didn’t do it until after Wekfest, but whatever.
Summer 2016 - Wekfest Prep 
