Lotus Harness fitting - bigger job than you think

After a last minute baulk on fitting my Lotus supplied harnesses I took the car without them fitted, just supplied.

I decided to buy the harnesses bolt kit from Hanger111 and fit them myself. The benefit being I could retain the intertia seatbelts.

We’ll once the seats were out it was plain to see why the dealer didn’t want to to the fitment.

There was evidence that they had started the job and aborted

The bolts securing the bar are covered by the plastic casing that covers the entire back wall of the cabin. No problem, remove the speakers and you can get to them, albeit a bit of a fiddle.

on the 08 S2 the speakers are mounted in line with the harness bar. The bar crossing at them at about 1000 and 1400.

Removing the speakers was easy enough, but it didn’t give enough access to the bolts.

So the speaker surround had to be removed. The problem is the surround and is plastic riveted on

So there wasn’t an non-destructive way to remove them, they had to be carefully drilled out.

Once removed the harness bar was loosened and the harnesses fitted easily enough.

I had to buy some plastic pop-in screws to replace the Lotus ones and put the interior back together. I was concerned they would secure it as effectively, but they do and there is no rattle/squeak.

So a an hours job turned into a two and half hours.

Posted this to warn anyone ordering the harnesses. I’d insist the supplying dealer do the fitment to avoid the hassle of this job.

how are you finding the harnesses?

Wore them yesterday for a moderate blatt, they were fine.

Won’t know until I go on circuit in a couple of weeks.

Curious why you had to remove the harness bar, do the Lotus harnesses have fixed loops for the bar? I have the Luke harnesses from Hangar111 which go on without removal of the bar. Will soon be fitting on my new MY08 car, I hope it is just a quick seats out job same as it was for my MY07 Exige. Only issue I can see is that the MY08 has a sensor on the inertia latch, so if you are using harness instead of inertia, the seatbelt warning light will stay on. Does this affect airbag system or inertia pretensioner? I am keeping the inertia belt for road use, harness only for track.

Makes me glad that I had them already fitted, seems a pig of a job for something so simple.

Did mine myself. It was a doddle. I had the harness bar already installed and the Scroth harnesses just wrap around. I also took the exiting belts out. I found it easier to take the seats out and you don’t have to take the roof off to do this unlike what I was told.

Overall took me a couple of hours.

Same experience as me, seats out, harnesses wrap round bar seats back in…couple of hours max.

Hardest part was gettig to the bolts for the passesger seat.

The Scroth harnesses I have have an insert in the end of the strap that prevents you pulling the strap through the buckle and wrapping it around the bar. It has to go over an exposed end of the bar.

The Scroth harnesses I have have an insert in the end of the strap that prevents you pulling the strap through the buckle and wrapping it around the bar. It has to go over an exposed end of the bar.

That’s definitely unusual. Normally they would come out of the buckle. Wouldn’t be much use if you had a full cage with a welded in harness bar.

The Scroth harnesses I have have an insert in the end of the strap that prevents you pulling the strap through the buckle and wrapping it around the bar. It has to go over an exposed end of the bar.

I took the scissors to the stitching and removed the small plastic insert that is at the end of the strap… Fits back through the buckle now so you can get them out of the way.

Sounds like these are the wrong Schroth Harnesses to me. I bought mine from MSAR a couple of months ago and was told they are manufactured for the Lotus

I had the same issue with Schroth cos the supplying stealer who fitted the harnesses put the drivers side ASM belt to the outsde instead of inside so…

…thinking it was a simple fix…I set about chnging them over…to find that the insert at the end of the belt makes it difficult to thread the belt thro the retaining plate…but it does go and just takes some effort…about an hours effort in my case FFS!

Take care,