roel03

HANS attaches to the helmet, so buy a helmet that already has anchors installed. Buying one used will save you A LOT of money.

Sickdayracing

Please stay away from this advice. There is a reason for the broom stick test, if you can't pass it, you are putting your life in serious jeopardy in a crash. Our hardtops are not a structural component.

As far as "you'll know when you will want to to install a roll bar, seat, and harness", hopefully that isn't when you had a brake failure, hit oil/coolant, spinning into a wall, or any other number of things outside of your control that can happen on the race track. Again, you can't buy that equipment as you are about to hit a wall, only before.

roel03

I'd listen to this guy if I was you. Not only will the safety items save your life, but they have many other benefits. Your car has 100k, it's not worth anything. Do what you want to the car, not what you think the next guy wants.

To add to the oil spill scenario: I blew my motor on the VIR back straight and calmly went off track. The mustang behind me blew past the braking zone at 140mph.

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Barnburner3

Tommy - that you?

I was the guy that same weekend that blew a brake line on the back straight. Yes, it was stainless steel but must have been weakened due to hitting something during a small off avoiding a spun car earlier that day.

Shit happens - buy the safety equipment.

roel03

Yup it's me.

blueosprey90

The OP indicated that he had no track experience whatsoever. It's a free country and he can do what he thinks best, and we can all have somewhat different opinions about what's best for ourselves and for him. I'm sure that we all wish him well with the track day addiction that is about to befall him.

Sure, I have a roll bar, racing seat, harness and HANS -- plus a racing suit, fire system, fuel cell and remote fuel shut off in my race car. I've spun, missed corners and once had contact with another car. But the OP isn't racing, not doing time trials - and presumably not dive bombing into the corners or passing without a point by. He's only going out for his first few track days. If he gets some proper instruction and seat time, perhaps he'll know a little better how to control his car.

To be honest, I've never felt that I've had any sort of a safety issue or close call at a track day. We're all going in the same direction and more or less the same speed. The cars seem to be properly prepared. Most drivers seem to be fairly conservative and drive within their limits. Give the fast cars a point by and they go. Sure, I've seen guys go off into a wall and I've seen guys spin and I've seen one roll over, but those events have been extremely rare.

spaded.racer

OP is just getting his feet wet. Putting in his head he needs a seat, rollbar, hans, ect just to do some HPDE is counter intuitive.

Let him do some events and fully decide if this hobby is for him.

If the bug bites and he decides to make the car a track car, then yes , absolutely go full safety.

DanielB

I'd recommend you separate safety improvements from performance improvements. Compromise on performance all day, but you need a minimum set of safety improvements.

As others have said, I think a rollbar is the minimum safety improvement you can make. Surprisingly, most of the tracks I've been to accept the stock roll hoops - but unless you are quite short, your head will make impact with the ground before the hoops. Upgraded seat and harness, HANS devices, etc are important too, but you have to balance the risk you're willing to take with the cost and impacts to street driving that you are willing to make. Replacing rubber brake lines would be a no-brainer safety item in my thinking.

For performance, run stock for a while and work on your skills before you start throwing parts at the car. But I suspect that you'll find the stock brake pads inadequate after the first day so you'll want/need to go with something that can live at elevated temps. The other thing you should consider after you've done a few days and decided you like it is to add camber to the front. It will pay for itself in reduced front tire wear as well as make the car turn in better. Despite what everyone says about these cars being tail happy, on smooth roads they understeer, especially on throttle coming out of corners.

Beyond that, get out there and get as much seat time as you can. And find a way to get some instruction. Practicing bad habits just makes it that much harder later to do it right.

ThisIsRace

Thanks so much to everyone's input, I like the different angles people have but I'm typically an overly cautious person.

Great point, telling it how it is! Especially because even a low mileage car is worthless if its rolled! Rather be alive and safe

As of now my plan is to get the Rockstar Garage Rollbar, some nice Takatas, Recaros, and a HANS. Safety first all day (at least I'll look like I know what I'm doing) If, for some reason I really don't seem to like racing, I can always offload the parts for something. I've been messing with cars for quite a few years, I just don't like the idea of street cars anymore. I've seen too many good people die because they were being over zealous or because something unexpected happened. A few years back I sold my procharged LS2 swapped FD RX7, wasn't even close to safe! In retrospect I'm really glad I did.

freq

OP, be fully aware, what may be a worthwhile track mod can also make a street driven car more dangerous.

No free lunch.