Box of goodness!
The backing plates, a pair of eyelets and clips.
A clip on the belt.
the whole shebang!
I rode with a fellow autocrosser in his M3 at Nelson Ledges for a half hour, which was a phenomenal ride...but the passenger belts didn't have any pads, and the edge of the belt was sawing into my neck. I don't want to have that problem, and having been a passenger without them, I wouldn't want to subject my passenger to the same discomfort. So, i got some pads, these from OG Racing, the also arrived superfast. the pads are thicker on the inside, which is good, and are of pretty high quality compared to the average "POWERED BY HONDA" pad you see on so many cars these days.
In talking with some fellow Honda-Tech members, particularly Travis (whose autopower rollbar install was my primary guideline), it became apparent that to use the stock belt anchor points, a longer eyebolt than the 3/4 inch ones that came with the belts would be necessairy. A call to OMP landed me four of the long style eyebolts, and I also called Racer Wholesale to get another pair of backing plates, which i needed to mount an eyebolt to the center exhaust tunnel, since the buckle is attached to the seat in an integra, and my drivers seat is not stock.
The longer OMP eyebolt compared to the shorter one that Racer Wholesale carries.
With all my goodies gathered, I once again headed to McB AutoSport where Mark generously gave me access to one of his lifts, and, some of his trick tools.
This thing makes life SOOOO much easier.
As always, these are the steps I took, your mileage may vary. The main part of the work was to install an eyebolt through the exhaust tunnel in the driver's side (since the seatbelt anchor point went with the seat). A 4x4 backing plate is installed for safety and legality in most racing organizations. First order of business, remove the heatshields to give access to where we need to be. That means getting the exhaust out of the way...but not totally.
Lube up the two hangers in the middle of the car....
And the one in front of the muffler.
Pop the hangers off (easiest to do from the frame, not the exhaust), and the exahust will sag enough to give you access to the heat shield. Undo the heat shield (the little bolts are easy to see, if it doesn't come loose, you've missed some)
Here's your heatshield. Some people might opt to leave this out, but Mark convinced me that the rear heatshield, the one that is nearest the GAS TANK, is a good one to keep installed. So this will be going back in, with a slight modification.
with your sharpie marker in hand, figure out where the plate needs to go, and mark the center hole with the marker. With 4x4 backing plates, the place I installed is probably the best you're going to get, i almost perfectly mirrors the doorside anchor point, and seems like a good sturdy place.
more pics of placement for reference
Now, ask Mark how the hell you're going to drill a hole in the tight confines of the exhaust tunnel with the exhaust still there, and Mark will loan you his angled drill thing, which is an angry weapon of a tool.
Here's the inside floor before we make our hole. Obviously, the seat has been removed.
Drill your hole pilot hole in the bottom (there are 2 layers of metal, so don't get cocky when you get through the first one), and then punch an awl or something through to see where your hole is on the inside of the car.
Now, take the larger drill bit that matches your eyebolts, and drill through the carpet slowly, then into the metal. At this point, you have options...
Make sure your eyebolt goes through. I got ahead of myself at this point, and forgot to install the civic belt buckle inline with the eyelet...if you don't need a buckle, just put the eyebolt through, wedge a screwdriver in the eyebolt so you can torque it from the bottom of the car without spinning the eyebolt uselessly, put some seam sealer on one side of your backing plate, and torque it down. Here's pictures of the install this way:
At this point, realizing my mistake, it was obvious a longer eyebolt would be needed to get the buckle inline, along with the washers and backing plate. Luckily, i got four long eyebolts, and it was just a matter of taking out the short one and putting the long one through (the seam sealer held the plate fast), and retorquing it.
Here's the interior, with the longer eyebolt and buckle in place
Since i had extra thread, I double nutted this bolt, which is never a bad thing where safety is concerned.
While I was tinkering with something, Mark took the heatshield after seeing the long eyebolt, and started cutting away. he removed an area large enough so that the sheild would not interfere with the long bolt.
And that's all there is to that! The rest is all down hill....if you have two aftermarket seats, you could mirror the tunnel eyebolt on the pasenger side, but I don't and won't for a while at least, since seats cost money and so do tires...if the passenger wants a racing seat, they can buy me one.
The subbelts are simple, just drill a hole into your floor (make sure you don't strike oil on the driver's side, or more accurately, brake fluid in the brake lines, you should be about 4 or 5 inches from their channel in the underbody though). Put the eyebolt in with a washer, put seam sealer on the backing plate, and torque it down. Repeat for both sides.
A short eyebolt works great in the stock buckle anchor point, just remove the stock bolt and put an eyebolt in its place.
On the door sides, a long eyebolt replaces the stock anchor bolt, but you have to get rid of the two super-deep washers or it won't thread enough. If you can find an eyebolt with a 2 inch shank, power to you, but i sure couldn't.
What the hell is all that stuff for!?!?
A comparison of the long eyebolt and the stock anchor bolt
And that, as they say, is that.
Just thread the shoulder harnesses onto the rollbar crossbrace, and you've got some frickin 5-points!
Closeup of the sub belt, installed
Camlocks are SCHWEEET.
Thanks to Tim for helping on the latter part of this install, we banged around a bit last night in these, and i don't think a stock belt will ever satisfy me again.
