Mounting a new racing seat

[benracin]

I just purchased a 1st gen rx7 race car and had to remove the racing seat because it's too big and doesn't go far enough forward for me (I guess I'm to short). The old seat was mounted on rx7 seat rails and we're quite rusty and only locked on one side.

I purchased an ultra shield racing seat that fit me, sparco seat rails and sparco seat brackets to mount it to. The bracket bolted to the side of the aluminum seat then the rails bolted to the brackets.

The old seat mounts in the car are to far apart width wise to bolt the racing seat to so what we did was run a piece of flat iron across the two rear seat mounts and then bolted the rear of the seat rails to that. So now the seat rails bolt to this strip of metal, then go forward and over a cross member.

Problem is that using this mounting the seat is to high and top portion of the seat is coming in contact with the roll bar. My height (5'5") also puts the seat far enough forward for my head to come in contact with other parts of the cage.

What can I do? I've come up with these ideas:

1. I can raise the bolting points of the brackets to the seat another 1/2" but I don't think that's going to cure the problem totally.

2. Can I remove the original rear seat mounts and just bolt my rails to the floor? I would then bolt the front portion of the seat rails to that forward cross member.


Has anyone had this kind of a problem or know of a better way to mount a racing seat?

Thanks for the help.

[Quickshoe]

At 5'5" can you move the seat forward of the rear floor mounts (avoiding removal)? Then mount the front and rear of the seat as low as possible! Ideally, it would be fastened to the cage structure and not the floor. If you do bolt it to the floor use large washers/plates with rounded edges on both the seat and floor, use grade 8 hardware and nylocks or other form of self locking nut.

I would think that your seat would be way too high and/or cage too low to have these types of clearance issues at that height.

[Silkworm]

I removed the rear mounts and bolted my seat to the floor.

PaulC

[benracin]

Paul, after you mounted the rear of the seat to the floor, where did you mount the front part of the rails? I'm thinking about drilling down through the front cross member and just running a bolt all the way through.

The seat really isn't that tall, it fits me really well. I think that the way it's mounted to the side rails makes it really tall so I might have to re-mount it anyways. Hopefully putting it on the floor will fix it.

Thanks for the advice guys.

[Boswoj]

I mounted my Kirkey directly to the floor with big washers top and bottom to prevent pull through under duress. I had to cut out the seat mounting points on the floor to get it to sit flat. In my conference a seat back brace is not required, but I will be installing one because between the seat and the floor flexing slightly it makes for just a little too much overall movement. Even with mounting straight to the floor, I have marks all over the side of my helmet where it rubs on the cage. I'm a bit over 6' but have a long upper body and there is just barely enough room for me in the car.

[Silkworm]

My front bolts go to the front seat mount cross piece.. We welded some plate to reinforce that area, and put bolts to hold the seat on.

PaulC


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