825 replies to this topic

[38bfast]

Welding the seat drop in before the door bars in makes it much easier. I have done it both ways now and it's a pain in the ass laying over the bars to weld.

Your main hoop position may limit how far back a race tech seat can mount. They are very porky in the shoulder area. You are not that tall so it may work out for you. Fantastic seat though. One of the few composite seats that I feel like I am sitting in rather than on. We just put one in Novaks car.

[speedengineer]

Welding the seat drop in before the door bars in makes it much easier. I have done it both ways now and it's a pain in the ass laying over the bars to weld.

Your main hoop position may limit how far back a race tech seat can mount. They are very porky in the shoulder area. You are not that tall so it may work out for you. Fantastic seat though. One of the few composite seats that I feel like I am sitting in rather than on. We just put one in Novaks car.

I'm 5'8" with short legs and taller torso than average, so my seat sits up pretty close.  I do prefer a lot of lean back angle on the seat though.  Excited about the Racetech!  I got the 119. If you don't mind my asking, which model did you just install in Novak's car?  Fit easily enough? 

 

Ralph, I kinda worried that 24" won't be enough distance from the rear bulkhead to properly mount my seat.  Going off the recaros, I'd likely have to make my seat brackets to overhang forward of the front edge of the bottom of the dropped floor pan, especially if I build it with the standard angled front edge!

[38bfast]

We put in the 4119 in mikes car. We did have plenty of room up front with a 45 deg. front edge. Mike has long arms so we put a lot of lay back in the seat. His cage is main hope off the self by the OE belt attach point. We used all the room the car / cage would give. The bottom of the seat was mounted 1/8 inch off the bottom of the pan. His line of seight is mid windshield witch was are target. There are some pictures of the install on my v2 Motorsports Facebook page. I would say Mike would be the tallest driver for that seat install that would what I consider acceptable head clearance.

[38bfast]

Just for reference, we always try and fit the seat / driver first and then build the cage to suit. We seem to always have to make compromises when we put a seat in after the cage is in. We are doing 3 cages right now and step number one is fit the driver. Traditionally main hoop off the floor gives up about 2". I am not going to get in the debate to what is better off the shelf vs off the floor. But I do put a high priority to making the driver fit.

The fall back plan is always the Kirkey containment road race seat. It offers the most flexible seating position. I have learned that everyone has their own particular position they like. There is no standard. Case in point I like 35 deg lay back. Getto setting position

In the P1 car is 50 deg. Lay back. But the problem is I fall asleep on grid.

[dstevens]

The first cage I did was a kit.  I ran it once before I added to it and after a few races took it out and built from scratch, around me.  Even in something as spacious as a hobby stock I needed a cage built to fit.  I'm sized big for a race driver (even if I wasn't approaching old man fat...)  That stock car I was at 6-4 and 300 and the Miata 6-4 and 260.  Like Ralph the first thing we would do is mock the seat position as well as steering and controls/console.  The SM the steering and dash/controls is what it is and that made it more difficult for me.   I spent a good 8-12 hours measuring, mock ups, fitting and in Bendtech before I was ready to cut tubing.

 

The reason I didn't get a Miata Cage or Wheeler kit was that I wanted to make absolutely sure I got the most room I could.  I went to a race at Fontana and looked at some SM cars as well as all sorts of cage designs for other sources.  I had to step out of the game before I finished mounting the seat (in fact I sold it...) but the interior was built measured around me to make sure I fit.  I had to cut some of the ragtop towers out to get it to fit and I just barely fit.  Now with the floor drop option available it's going to be easier for many to fit before they allowed the option.

 

While you have snow on the ground there out here So Pac has already had the first driver school.

[Bench Racer]

http://www.msn.com/e...night/vi-CCrddh

[speedengineer]

I'm looking for some opinions regarding aesthetics.  My donor car had a tan interior and dashboard.  It has been brought to my attention that the tan dash will look a bit goofy.  Should I swap it out to a black dash?

 

I do think that if there was one car paint color that would match the tan best, it's the dark blue of my car.  Current plan is to paint the interior sheet metal gloss silver, and the cage and other accents inside and around the car a dark red/burgundy. 

 

I tried looking up photos of nice SM builds that have tan dashboards.  Couldn't find any.  Anyone have any example photos?

[chris haldeman]

Prep and vinyl dye the tan dash black. Holds up pretty good

[speedengineer]

Prep and vinyl dye the tan dash black. Holds up pretty good

Something like this?

http://www.jegs.com/...YXP9RoC5k3w_wcB

 

Looks cheap and easy enough I suppose.  Is it capable of getting the tan to a true black, or not quite?

[chris haldeman]

Yep that type of product works good. Typically available at any local auto parts store. Color is good. It is basically more of a paint and less of a dye

[speedengineer]

Just to get an idea what the color scheme might look like, I took a photo of my old car and added color to it.  Kinda difficult to do to white surfaces.  Posterized it to hide details. 

 

Old car/original photo:

 

Proposed color scheme for the new car:

 

 

Thoughts?

[Erik Hardy]

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Can't comprehend, no graph shown. 

[Steve Scheifler]

Too distracting. Flashes of color should be from things outside the car.

[speedengineer]

Too distracting. Flashes of color should be from things outside the car.

 

Sounds boring.  There would also be matching red vinyl on the exterior....

[speedengineer]

Can't comprehend, no graph shown. 

Fixed:

 

 

Nothing says "premium luxury" like tan interiors.  lolol

[38bfast]

I did build a white car with a tan dash and thought it looked quite nice. But most prefer all black.

[pitbull113]

I like the tan dash. But I also like light colored roll cages.

[Bench Racer]

But most prefer all black.

Ok!!!

[Diller]

Get some fake suede fabric and wrap the dash. 

[James York]

Get some fake suede fabric and wrap the dash. 

fire hazard