Skip, I thought you had a different custom bar in your car?

 

Unless you are very short and slide your seat forward a lot, your head will be quite close to the bar with any seat. In an accident, stock seats/belts allow a lot of movement and you stand a good chance of hitting your head on the bar. That's why I did bar/seats/6 pt harnesses at the same time. Its still less safe as a street car than with no bar, but I do very little street driving with it.

 

Should I even bother looking? I'm 6'1" so I know I'll be somewhat close to it. I'm just so frustrated that I didn't know about HPDE's requiring roll bars before I bought the car.. I love my s2k to death, but if I knew I wouldn't be able to track it, I would've given a lot more consideration to the rx8.

Just lack of research on my part.

Guess I can always just stick to autox..

 

^Yeah I'm in the same boat as you at 6'1" I'm hopefully getting a seat in the car this week and I'll see how much more room I think I get with it. If it ends up looking like it'll be too close then I will just hold off until the car is no longer a daily and I can do a proper harness setup and not have to worry about daily driving the car. I'm still hoping that it looks like I'll be able to do it. If it looks like it'll be cutting it close I might look into seeing if I can't have a custom rollbar made that would let me put it back a little bit farther. I wasn't planning on keeping the factory roll hoops or any of the rear trim in once I got the bar anyways.

 

At 6'1" your head will be very close to the bar.

I was right where you are about a year and a half ago, and made the decision to convert my S to a track car. Its compromised as a street car, but any good track car will be including a RX8. The S2000 is a wonderful track car with very minor modifications. Probably a lot better than a RX8. To build a safe track car you really should be looking at a rollbar and 5/6 point harnesses anyway regardless of the car. Bad things, while somewhat rare, will happen very fast at a track day.

Here is my 2 cents worth. You own the car, you love it. You will get a lot of enjoyment out of it as a track car. As long as you can drive something else daily ( I have a civic for such purposes) you aren't really losing out on much. Honestly, if you get a chance to do a track day you will probably be hooked and do pretty much whatever is needed to keep doing it.

 

Another option is to get a custom bar welded in. My car will be going into the shop in the near future for this. I had a HardDog bar in my Miata, while I think the overall construction is great, some of the details (like harness mount positioning) are not as great. A custom bar from Piper will run about $2.5-3k.

 

Thanks for the advice dc_s2k. I figured I'd be pretty close to the bar.. I was just hoping for the improbable.

I've bolded my dilemma.. I'd love to turn my car into a dedicated track car but I don't have the budget for a second DD. I already spent most of my expendable money for the year just buying the s2k, and even if I bought a crappy beater, there wouldn't be enough left over to go racing.

I'd take the bar out while not at the track if was an option, but from what I've read of it, I can't imagine bigger pain in the @ss.

I'm not writing off tracking the s2k all together, but I don't see I way to stay safe and do it this year.

 

^I think I'm with you there. I'm going to continue to do autocross this year as it doesn't require a rollbar and it still gets me seat time. Maybe next year I can get it figured out. I'd love to do the rollbar still though.

 

Crap, I think I just talked myself out of 2 six packs.

You could always wear a bike helmet when you drive...

 

Well... Can anyone answer this for me:

Do any of you DD your S2K with the Hard Dog bar? BTW, I am 5'8" so there's about 2" gap behind my seat.

My S2k is my DD and I want to track the car. Summit Point now requires a roll bar for S2k (but not for Boxster & BMW Z... WTF?). If DD with a bar is not a viable option, I might as well give up the hope of tracking my car until I get a beater.