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      06-14-2017, 10:31 AM   #1
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BK harness and seat mounts plus carrying wheels to the track

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I wanted to share this with you because I think it's a huge deal.


Some of you may have followed my saga HERE with mounting race seats to my E92 that allow 3 points as well as the 6 points.

To sum up, the MS hardware is not made for this car despite claims to the contrary and simply doesn't function as intended. I had to ghetto mod several things to achieve a simple goal: allow 3+6points in the car. This is what I bought from MS and it was impossible to do it without modifications.

However, the BK bar I had on that car was excellent and functioned as advertised. For the ones not familiar with BK, these guys build harness bars for many cars (Corvettes and Porsches as well as Mustangs, etc) and in our case with Ms, they provide a FULLY REVERSIBLE install that doesn't require drilling into the car or welding.
As a big plus, their bars are tested to DOT standards so they will actually work in the case of a crash.

I have to pause here to address the elephant in the room. Many people feel that unless you have a full cage or at least half a welded cage, race seats are instant screaming death on a stick. Those people also say it's better to run 3 points of the Schroth QFP than a 6 point and a harness bar.
I disagree completely, but here is what Schroth has to say about it. They may know a thing or two about safety.
Cliff notes: 6 points are safer than 3 points, period.
https://www.schrothracing.com/docs/TechTactics.pdf
Edit December 2020: the pdf is no longer on the website but here are the interesting pages:







Fast forward to 2016 and we buy a dedicated track car which is an E90, so given the great experience we had with their harness bar we wanted to go with them again. We had also heard they had developed seat mounts and wanted to use those instead of the MS garbage we already bought.


The only bad thing about a harness bar is you more or less lose the space where you'd put tires, so instead of carrying four tires in the back seat you're limited to just two. That doesn't cut it because sometimes you want slicks and other times -true story- you run into issues with NT01s and you have to bring spares.

These are the front seats


And here is how the rear looks when you carry two tires with the bar mounted. You can see one here and one in the trunk



However, if you remove just one bolt per side of the harness bar it folds on itself!


Tachan!



What should I do with that space? Here we go! 2 10.5" BW TE:AL wheels with 275 tires plus two spare 275 tires fit perfectly!
There is so much space I have no doubt 4 295s fit in there!




A view from the trunk



It still seems like there is a lot of space... so check this out!




And a view from the trunk


This is incredible. I can transport 6 spare wheels or tires to the track without a trailer or a roof bar! How awesome is that?

Last edited by SYT_Shadow; 12-10-2020 at 01:21 PM..
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      06-14-2017, 10:32 AM   #2
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Next up, the seat mounts from BK
As a reminder, my old setup was MS mounts plus Recaro sliders.

These BK mounts reuse the OEM sliders. If yours are manual the setup is manual, but if they're power sliders then you retain that. Now you can have a race seat on a power slider! This has great incredible advantages:
-bolts directly to the floor without any sort of matrix plate-- less weight, stronger, lighter in net, lower
-stiffer, so the seat is more rigidly mounted
-doesn't get noisy over time, like aftermarket sliders tend to
-the BMW sliders are built to have belts mounted above them, as that's how the factory belts attach. Aftermarket ones are not. This means the belts stay properly located to the seats, and don't tear out in an accident
-you don't have to buy them (just pull them off your seat)

The recaro sliders I had before are the best thing you can use until now. With the recaro mounts, the seats would move and I thought that was normal. Suffice to say, there is ZERO movement now using the OEM sliders.






This is such an impressive setup, super happy with it!

Last edited by SYT_Shadow; 06-15-2017 at 07:05 AM..
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      06-14-2017, 10:33 AM   #3
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      06-14-2017, 02:25 PM   #4
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Thanks for posting this! I've been looking into this harness bar and I'm very interested in picking one up.

I didn't know that they released it yet...their website still shows it as coming soon:

http://www.bkauto.com/R_1290_BMW_E90...r_p/r-1290.htm

Where'd you purchase it at and how much if you don't mind me asking? Also, can this be used with the stock rear seats still installed?

Thanks!
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      06-14-2017, 02:29 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dj_dub View Post
Thanks for posting this! I've been looking into this harness bar and I'm very interested in picking one up.

I didn't know that they released it yet...their website still shows it as coming soon:

http://www.bkauto.com/R_1290_BMW_E90...r_p/r-1290.htm

Where'd you purchase it at and how much if you don't mind me asking? Also, can this be used with the stock rear seats still installed?

Thanks!
Their website is a bit iffy, I just called them to ask if they had the seat mounts and harness bar!

It's the same as the E92 bar, around $700 if I remember correctly

I didn't try to install it with the rear seats installed. I believe the bottom can be installed but the seatback can't, or viceversa.
The bottom part of the seat installs and uninstalls itself almost just by looking at it. The seat back was a bit harder, especially in my car that doesn't have folding rear seats

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      06-14-2017, 04:24 PM   #6
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BK mounts are amazing, and lighter too than the competition. I'm using the direct mount to floor mounts in my E92, they just came out a month ago. I ordered mine through Vivid Racing who distributes them.

http://www.bkauto.com/category_s/400.htm
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      06-14-2017, 04:27 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow View Post
Their website is a bit iffy, I just called them to ask if they had the seat and harness bar!

It's the same as what I paid for the E92 bar, around $700 if I remember correctly

I didn't try to install it with the rear seats installed. I believe the bottom can be installed but the seatback can't, or viceversa.
The bottom part of the seat installs and uninstalls itself almost just by looking at it. The seat back was a bit harder, especially in my car that doesn't have folding rear seats
Awesome...thanks for all the info bro, I appreciate it!
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      06-14-2017, 04:35 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redpriest View Post
BK mounts are amazing, and lighter too than the competition. I'm using the direct mount to floor mounts in my E92, they just came out a month ago. I ordered mine through Vivid Racing who distributes them.

http://www.bkauto.com/category_s/400.htm
It's so nice to find something that works well for these cars!

The experience with MS' floor mounts was so terrible. I'm glad BK takes our cars seriously!
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      06-14-2017, 08:54 PM   #9
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Awesome!
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      06-15-2017, 11:00 AM   #10
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The Brey Krause side mounts also work with the OE power slider

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      06-15-2017, 12:00 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
The side mounts also work with the OE power slider

a more street friendly seat than what I have, plus power sliders would really be incredible
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      06-15-2017, 12:56 PM   #12
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Amazing information and write-up, thanks for sharing!

And just in time also, will be setting my car up with race seats very soon, can't wait. BK has a good rep on other platforms so glad to see they are coming out with more products here.
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      06-15-2017, 01:06 PM   #13
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So I have electronic OEM sliders and trying to think this through. Do I have to dismount the controls from my stock seats and mount them somewhere? Would it be easier to get non-electric OEM sliders?

EDIT: After reading over the BK Auto website it sounds like they provide instructions for how to do this and mounting locations for the controls on the seat mounts, very cool!
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      06-15-2017, 01:17 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ///Mobbin View Post
So I have electronic OEM sliders and trying to think this through. Do I have to dismount the controls from my stock seats and mount them somewhere? Would it be easier to get non-electric OEM sliders?
Installation instructions:
http://qnuwm.rpstd.servertrust.com/v...ions/R9281.pdf

It uses an e30 window switch to control the slider.

... manual sliders are easier to install, but you don't have to pull apart your seats controls to go with power sliders.
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      06-15-2017, 01:45 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ///Mobbin View Post
So I have electronic OEM sliders and trying to think this through. Do I have to dismount the controls from my stock seats and mount them somewhere? Would it be easier to get non-electric OEM sliders?

EDIT: After reading over the BK Auto website it sounds like they provide instructions for how to do this and mounting locations for the controls on the seat mounts, very cool!
If I had electric seats I would have maintained the power sliders. They're easier to use than the manual one once you're strapped in with a 6 point

I'm not sure how it would work, but the people there are very helpful so I'd just call them
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      06-16-2017, 08:49 AM   #16
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Race Seat Coding Thread

Has anyone followed this and done their own race seat install coding? Seems fairly straightforward.

Then if you are leaving three-points in I wonder if you should leave the seat belt tensioner values active?
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      06-16-2017, 08:56 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ///Mobbin View Post
Race Seat Coding Thread

Has anyone followed this and done their own race seat install coding? Seems fairly straightforward.

Then if you are leaving three-points in I wonder if you should leave the seat belt tensioner values active?
I have, and yes-- better to have the pre tensioner working!

I just coded off the two seat occupancy sensor values. No airbag light that way.

I also coded off the seat belt buckle warning light, so that I wouldn't get an cluster light when running the harness.

e46, but same process.
(actually, coded off the seat occpancy sensor on my e39, as well, when the sensor failed)
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      06-16-2017, 11:04 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ///Mobbin View Post
Race Seat Coding Thread

Has anyone followed this and done their own race seat install coding? Seems fairly straightforward.

Then if you are leaving three-points in I wonder if you should leave the seat belt tensioner values active?
We've also done it. It is quite straightforward
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      06-16-2017, 11:38 PM   #19
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Do you guys run Profi XL by chance?

The width of the outer shell is 429.26mm. I think I saw though that all Recaro mount width is 406mm though.

BK offers two types:
-R-9281 Seat Mounts for BMW sliders with seats between 390mm and 429mm wide at the mount points
-R-9280 Seat Mounts for BMW sliders with seats between 430mm and 460mm wide at the mount points

I assume the right one is 9281 (390-429)? Just wanted to double check. Thx!
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      06-17-2017, 05:02 AM   #20
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I run the Ergo which is quite wide

If I remember correctly, on one side I have the narrow one and on the other the wider one. It's to correctly center the seat so I can slide the very wide Ergo forward and rearward without hitting the tranny tunnel or the B pillar.

I think this only is a problem with the sedan and with my wide seat
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      06-17-2017, 07:50 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MattMan View Post
Do you guys run Profi XL by chance?

The width of the outer shell is 429.26mm. I think I saw though that all Recaro mount width is 406mm though.

BK offers two types:
-R-9281 Seat Mounts for BMW sliders with seats between 390mm and 429mm wide at the mount points
-R-9280 Seat Mounts for BMW sliders with seats between 430mm and 460mm wide at the mount points

I assume the right one is 9281 (390-429)? Just wanted to double check. Thx!
9281 is correct for the spg xl.
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      06-17-2017, 11:29 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
9281 is correct for the spg xl.
Gotcha thanks
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