The verbal results support my thoughts, but interestingly enough we are tied @ 4 votes each! Could someone voting seats comment?

 

I’d be curious to hear why someone would recommend seats first. I did notice that the vote is even. Also it’s anonymous so we don’t know who has voted for seats first.

My rationale for going rollbar first was that in the event of a rollover, the rollbar affords me protection. If I did seats and harnesses first, then my chances of survival would be very low to none in the event of a rollover.

 

You would not want to do harnesses without a rollbar just seats. My only thought was this:
1) OEM roll-over is quite good in these cars
2) A seat gets you even lower so it really helps beyond OEM roll-over
3) A seat even with a 3 point belt does hold you in better, so in the event of an impact there is protection
4) A seat holdsyou in while driving and will help you drive better.

All that said, most situations I feel like I can get the car slowed enough or there is good protection from an impact. I feel like a rollover can just happen during an off and can be much less predictable, even a rebound off a tire barrier. So I feel like if something is going to happen it is going to be a rollover or worse flipping.

 

One of the things that worried me about seats without harnesses is that it changes the angle of the belt run in that it no longer sits correctly on your hip bones, leading to the possibility of submarining / internal injuries in a big front impact.

A rollbar and seats with stock belts leads you to the belt no longer routing the same as stock (since you need to move the belt slide which was bolted to the stock roll hoop), which prevents it from retracting properly so I am hesitant to believe that the seatbelt pretensioners can fully take up the extra slack. I think this might be important in a rollover.

With this said, I do drive my car on the street like this a limited amount so it's a calculated risk.

I might be overly paranoid, but I switched to tracking cars earlier this year after tracking/racing motorcycles for a number of years. Got hurt and had friends hurt too many times; fell into the "With age comes a cage" thing so I figure there are no more real half measures.

 

That is a good perspective on the belts and aftermarket seats, I hadn't thought of that. I really think the comments have eased my curiosity as to if I was making the proper choice. Hopefully the rollbar, stock seats, and OEM belts matches up well from the seatbelt standpoint.

 

I did a rollbar and then seats shortly after, I've been running it that way since March of this year. I've kept the 3-point since the car is still street driven and have the belt running through the lap belt pass-throughs of the seats, thus retaining the OE functionality. I'd like to install a 6 point and keep the 3-point until the car is no longer street driven but have not gotten around to buying the belts and figuring out the solution yet. For now, the setup suits its purpose just fine.

 

roll bar. Most clubs wont let you run without one.

 

not around here. The only club I know of is BMW club, any others are fine with the S2000 and no roll-bar

 

^^ Where is 'around here'? Are you in the northeast? Palmer, Thompson, Lime Rock and Watkins Glen part of the 'around here'?

I ask that because the BMW clubs in and around the area wont have an S2000 or Miata run unless it has a cage. There used to be a time when one could run with a rollbar, But not since the 2008 or 2009 season.

 

Ohio. Yeah BMW here wants a roll-bar. NASA, SCCA, PCA, Chin, and Auto Interests are all fine with no roll-bar