Roll bar - Watson Racing vs Cooltech

[Tat2bass]

With mine, I had the rear welded to the floor. Obviously with the Watson I lose the seat backs of the rear seat, but left the bottom portion so the bare metal isn't exposed and if need be, I can set stuff back there and it holds it in, like a small backpack or extra water bottles when I hit the canyons

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[kart125]

[MENTION=26762]kart125[/MENTION] Have you considered a HARNESS BAR Easier install and removal, less investment and serves the same purpose, provides a harness attachment point.
Also allows easy attachment for a seat back brace so you are not relying on the factory reclining mechanism when you cinch the harness up.
Don't run a 6PT harness without a Fixed back racing seat, the factory seat does not have the structure for it.

Thanks for your reply. Yes I've considered an harness bar but want to add rollover protection in case of... I found it unsafe to be strapped to a car without roll bar.

 

[kart125]

With mine, I had the rear welded to the floor. Obviously with the Watson I lose the seat backs of the rear seat, but left the bottom portion so the bare metal isn't exposed and if need be, I can set stuff back there and it holds it in, like a small backpack or extra water bottles when I hit the canyons

Thanks for your pictures. Red is awesome looking but I'm thinking of going a more subtle grey/black combo. Good idea to keep seat cushion for extra storage.

 

[CoolTech]

There are a few differences between our roll bar solution and the one from Watson.

1. Main Hoop Attachment: Watson has opted to secure the main hoop laterally to existing bolts in the vertical structure behind the door opening. In our design, we have custom 3/16" steel base plates that bolt to the lateral beam across the car. This beam is almost literally un-drillable because it is high-strength steel but we leverage existing (un-used) holes and some nut-sticks to attach our base plates to the beam. We prefer this attachment mechanism for strength and as the base plates are separate from the bar itself, more serious racers may opt to weld in these plates and this would not effect the powdercoating of the main bar pieces. We think most customers will opt for straight bolt-in but it is nice to know that if the car becomes more of a dedicated track weapon, then these plates can be welded.

2. Perhaps one of the main obvious differences is that our bar will work equally well with our without rear seats in place. Now, we would NEVER advocate having rear seat passengers with a roll bar installed, but we did not want to REQUIRE a rear seat delete kit for GT/GT350 owners. While the OEM offers a very nice rear seat delete kit, it IS pricey and essentially adds to the overall cost of adding in a roll bar. For any of you who have removed a rear seat, you know that there’s not much of a weight penalty – especially over a quality seat-delete kit. We wanted to leave the seat-delete decision up to the car owner.

3. Down tubes. The Watson down tubes go to the floor of the car. Our down tubes bolt into the corner of an OEM box-structure where the vertical component of this structure is for the placement of the shoulder seat belt retract mechanism. This is a strong reinforced area of the car.

4. Harness Bar. Borrowing from the design of our very popular S197 roll bar kits, we kick the harness bar back ~6” to provide room for seat travel and normal seat-back angles. You simply can’t cause the thick Recaro seats to interfere with our bar and, further, you will always have room for your wrap-around shoulder straps. The roll bar is admittedly harder and more costly to construct in this manner, but we believe that ergonomics are important.

 

[Khyron]

What solutions are there for mounting the lap belts and sub belts? I know Cooltech had some nifty clips for the Boss 302, but I have heard there isn't enough room in the GT350 to use these clips. I'd prefer a clip solution like this to avoid drilling through the floor for a couple of eyebolts. What are you guys doing for the lap/sub belt mounting?

 

[RoadRacer]

What are you guys doing for the lap/sub belt mounting?

I installed mine entirely on the Planted base that I use with a Corbeau race seat.

 

[kart125]

I installed mine entirely on the Planted base that I use with a Corbeau race seat.

So the base of the racing seat has some specific attach points for lap and antisub belts?

 

[Tat2bass]

So the base of the racing seat has some specific attach points for lap and antisub belts?

I have planted seat brackets as well, and there are points on them to mount the lap bands and 5th point for my harness. And then the shoulder straps go on the roll cage harness bar. Different if you are gonna be keeping the stock seats. Honestly not sure of what harness options are for that.

 

[THX 138]

[...]

3. Down tubes. The Watson down tubes go to the floor of the car. Our down tubes bolt into the corner of an OEM box-structure where the vertical component of this structure is for the placement of the shoulder seat belt retract mechanism. This is a strong reinforced area of the car.

I have no skin in this game, as I don't intend to install a roll hoop of any kind in my car, BUT if I did, this would be the deciding factor for me. Do a quick Google search on "Mustang roll bar through floor" and you'll see why. :eyebulge:

Edit to add the photo and the photo credit, since it's cut off in the photo: ThienNam Ninh Photography

 

[Khyron]

I have no skin in this game, as I don't intend to install a roll hoop of any kind in my car, BUT if I did, this would be the deciding factor for me. Do a quick Google search on "Mustang roll bar through floor" and you'll see why. :eyebulge:

I also don't have either of these bars, but from looking at the Watson install instructions, the rear down tubes do go to the floor of the car directly above a reinforced beam that runs from left to right. This looks pretty good to me...

 

[snaproll]

I have no skin in this game, as I don't intend to install a roll hoop of any kind in my car, BUT if I did, this would be the deciding factor for me. Do a quick Google search on "Mustang roll bar through floor" and you'll see why. :eyebulge:

Edit to add the photo and the photo credit, since it's cut off in the photo: ThienNam Ninh Photography

Watson knows what they are doing. The bad idea is the harness bar.

 

[CoolTech]

I remember that picture of the flipped Mustang pretty well. Watson Racing has a LOT of experience and I don't think that they have compromised their mounting location. I wasn't trying to make the comparison that our downtube placement was any stronger than Watson - only that our placement allows the rear seat to stay in place. Both our CoolTech solution and the Watson solution place the main hoop on the structural lateral beam and so the potential for punch-through (as shown in the pic) is practically impossible.

 

[CoolTech]

What solutions are there for mounting the lap belts and sub belts? I know Cooltech had some nifty clips for the Boss 302, but I have heard there isn't enough room in the GT350 to use these clips. I'd prefer a clip solution like this to avoid drilling through the floor for a couple of eyebolts. What are you guys doing for the lap/sub belt mounting?

The seat clips that we originally created for the Boss302's will also work in the 2015+ Mustangs. In the S197 Mustangs both the in-board and out-board clips are mounted perpendicular to the seat rail and the seat still has the opportunity to slide. On the 2015+ GT/GT350/GT350R, the out-board clip is still mounted perpendicular to the seat rail but the in-board clip needs to mount parallel to the seat rail and straight back.

Attached below is a pic of the TIG-welded clips.

 

[bpracer]

When driving the GT350 Track Attack cars I was unable to recline the seat back far enough to allow the use of my HANS with the Watson bar. Part of that is due to the thickness of the Recaro seat and the angle of the fixed headrest. The Cooltech design may be better in that regard because of their horizontal tube design.

 

[kart125]

When driving the GT350 Track Attack cars I was unable to recline the seat back far enough to allow the use of my HANS with the Watson bar. Part of that is due to the thickness of the Recaro seat and the angle of the fixed headrest. The Cooltech design may be better in that regard because of their horizontal tube design.

Thanks for the info. How tall are you?

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