Quote Originally Posted by JeffYoung View Post
Greg, as a tech inspector, let me ask you a few questions. Not looking for a formal opinon of course, just want to bounce some ideas off of you.

Seat in my car is an FIA seat (Sparco) with a bottom mount ONLY.

Been looking for another seat and settled on the Sparco PRO 2000, which is also FIA homologated and also bottom mount.

Now, as I read the above rule, the seat must meat the standard and be mounted the same way as set forth in the standard.

I've read the standards and they are not entirely clear on this. They seem to suggest only testing with seat brackets (which I don't want to use) but I don't believe that Sparco could have gotten the FIA sticker for the seat if the bottom mounts hadn't be tested as well.

Thoughts?

By the way, I fully agree with you on those spears in the back of seats. Composite seats aren't designed for that.

Simon, what I've read on FIA v. non-FIA is that FIA won't give approval to an alum seat like a Kirkey. The FIA thinking is that an aluminum seat is not as safe for a variety of reasons.

US thinking seems to be different; Nascar boys have been using versions of that seat, with many improvements, for years.

I've raced cars with Kirkeys and things feel fine, but after reading the standards and the testing required to get an FIA cert I would not feel comfortable owning a seat that was not so tested.

The idea that a back brace is a sufficient replacmeent for that esting is a bit spooky to me.
Well my seat isn't an aluminum it's either plastic or fiberglass it's a Sparco, not sure what model, but it's not FIA approved. At least there isn't an FIA patch on it.