[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Schroth makes at least some five-point harnesses that are DOT legal. I don't know of anyone else who does.

I have a six-point harness in my car for time trialing, with the stock seat. I use the stock three-point belt for the street. The six-point harness makes it awfully tough to look around when backing up, and restricts your movement quite a bit.

My setup is legal (just) for PCA Zone 7, but not for anywhere else that I know of.

The shoulder belts are attached directly to the harness bar (a no-no in some places), and come back from my shoulders at something kind of near a 90-degree angle. There is no interference at all with the seat--but I have a long torso. Those with less torso length may wind up having the shoulder belts hit the edges of the seat, which would be bad.

The lap belts are attached to forged eyebolts that thread into the stock lap belt mounting points. No problems.

The belts are six-point belts because they have a dual sub strap. I'll get into the "why" for that in a moment. The two sub straps are mounted to the same eyebolts as the lap belts. In many places, it's a no-no to have two belts attach at the same point, so this would be illegal in (for instance) SCCA or PCA club racing. The sub strap lays on the seat and then comes up between the legs to attach to the buckle.

Contrary to what you would think, the sub strap's primary function in anything but a lay-down-to-drive formula car is not to keep you from going under the belts. Its main function in a street car (or street car based racer) is to keep the lap belt in position--snug and low across your hips. That keeps you in place the best in the event that The Worst happens.

Why a six-point setup? Because I didn't want to cut holes in my stock seats. The two belts sit on top of the seat, going under your legs, and then go to the lap belt attachments. I was very strongly advised not to run a single sub-strap forward around the front of the seat. Why? Because it turns the buckle so that the front edge is pushing into your abdomen. Guess what happens if you hit something? The edge of the buckle cuts into you... Not a happy thing... So I went with the six-points.

I'm still not completely sold on them, but they are legal in the venues where I want to run.

--DD