Let us know if you find an elegant solution to tidying up the rear area for those of us that don't want to just leave all the rear plastics out. The biggest "problem" is really the old plastics where the OEM rollbars were and covering that up. You can reattach the rear plastic tray in the rear and just zip tie it towards the front of the car to the harness bar or something.. I can't remember what it was.

 

Whatever I end up doing will be custom work. Not going to reuse any of the OEM plastics or panels because I just don't think it looks good using partial pieces and there's a big chance of things rattling which drives me insane. My friend's shop is good at fabricating custom "seat delete" panels usually wrapped in alcantara to make the back seats look nicer where a roll/harness bar has been installed. I'm trying to have something as simple as possible done to keep the costs down. I don't need show car quality, but I'd like to dampen the sound a bit as well as keep things looking decent. Will definitely share photos of what I end up doing.

 

That makes sense, just it's cost prohibitive for many folks to go that route. Depending on the price you might have some folks interested if the shop is interested in making more than just one. I'm interested to see what they can do, but I'm sure it aint cheap..

 

There are plenty of good roll bar solutions that don't require completely hacking up the rear roll hoops and interior. Jei has a great setup in his car that maintains the roll hoops and still has a proper harness bar and what not. For a track car though perfectly fine to remove all of it, and will save you some weight anyways.

I am sure you will come up with a nice looking setup.

 

The guys at blacktrax specifically told me that they will remove all the rear interior pieces to install a roll bar and won't be able to install back any of the stock pieces. I know it can be done, but they didn't seem like they were interested in taking the time to do it for a customer.

I've been trying to have a clean solution to run harnesses and keep the stock roll hoops, while being as safe as possible, but from all the people I have talked to about this as well as what I've seen on S2KI, there just isn't a good solution.

 

Ah I see, they have definitely done it in the past but I would imagine it is a very difficult process then.

 

thanks for the feedback. that's basically what i decided a while back. my gf already has a love/hate relationship w/the car, esp the cramped interior, so even losing a couple clicks or inches of legroom isn't something i want to do to her. the bars that i have considered sit pretty close to the driver and passenger's heads as well. as much as i would like to dust off my helmet, i don't plan to wear it on the street. lol


there really isn't a clean and safe solution to keeping the stock plastics, incl the roll hoops, and running harnesses. i did some research on bars a few times. my memory isn't the greatest these days, but i do remember that. i asked a few different shops.

just keeping the plastics and running stock belts is apparently a pain. majority of the ones i contacted don't want to do it. the couple that will said, "it won't be cheap." i don't have the time or energy to do it myself, and my friend that i would trust to do it always has me go through his boss' shop because he catches flak from his wife for doing sidejobs in his freetime. shop isn't cheap, and it's a trek from SF.

there's a shop in SoCal that has done very clean rollbar installs on street & showcars. they specialize in rallyprepping cars actually. price they gave for one of my old cars was very reasonable, but that was several years ago. i can dig up the contact info if anyone is interested.

 

So the harness bar is in and I finally drove the car home. First impression: Wow this car feels like it just lost over 100lbs. It is VERY light on it's feet now. Second impression: It is a lot louder now. Especially at higher speeds. Almost unbearable. Going to spend time covering the area with sound deadening for now and hopefully that helps a bit.









I still have to go back monday to finish getting the mounting points in for the 6 point harnesses.

New wheels look good:



Running RE71R's because Tirerack was out of RS3's. Figured it's a good time to try these out since I have a catch can and baffle in place now.



This weekend I'll be installing new rotors and pads. I I have some project mu fluid in transit as well. Track day at Laguna Seca this Friday. I'm hoping to turn 1:42-1:43's with all the changes. The car is just so much lighter than the last time I went plus with these grippy tires.

 

Car's looking better with the black wheels! What bar did you go with? RSG?

 

does look cleaner w/the gloss black wheels, but kinda liked it w/the Magnesium blue looking ones. gave car a little more flair. looked nice w/the Spoon calipers too. choosing wheels to run isn't a bad problem to have. lol