NEHA

A hillclimb is the best place to try seats, find the smaller folks and try their seats. Sciroccohp, I'll take the seats if you'll sell them to me. Sam, you are welcome to try one, and if it works for you, you can have half the seats for half the price. If you don't care for 'em, no obligation.
Seats can be a unique fit, especially for a car with a small interior. You are lucky not to be linebacker sized. Make sure you get a seat that fits you well. I had a loose fitting seat and would be sore for a few days after an event, until I got my current one from Walter.

When I was looking for a seat, I sat in as many race seats as possible. The ones I liked I looked up the seat dimensions to make sure they would work in the car. I also used the seat specs to find other manufacturer's seats that I have not tried yet and then tried to find those seats to try out. Seth is right, I'm sure everyone at the hills will let you hop in their cars to try seats.

That is excellent advice. I'll be at Ascutney and Philo so everyone be prepared for me to sit in your cars! and thanks for the offer Seth! I'll just have to see how well I fit and if the seat would even fit in my car. As you said, it does have a very small interior.

Hammer

I hope you don't mind if Rich and I follow you around. We're shopping for a seat as well as needing to investigate roll cage/door bar designs. Neither of us are particularly short, thin, nor flexible and our car isn't known for interior space either.

Paul

This is something I should have done years ago.
You are both more than welcome to try out the one I have! Its a Momo Super Cup and Im told it is very similar to the Sparco Evo so you might hit two birds here! I picked this one over the Sparco because it was over a $100 less.

Kent Everding wrote:You are both more than welcome to try out the one I have!

Thanks for the offer. Glad to hear you'll be doing more hills.

Paul

Yes thanks for the offer Kent. And Paul, of course I don't mind you following me around. Our cars are both 2 seaters with small interiors so we may be able to learn a little bit together at least as far as seat placement and the best way to attach belts. Were you thinking about putting in a seat belt bar? Or is there a strong enough metal attachment point behind the seat to directly bolt the harness to?

Fyi,
My seat is a sparco Evo, which is the smaller Evo. I know Erik will be there and he has the EVO 2 which is a touch bigger.
The evo fits in the subie just fine with enough room at the base to move sideways in both directions.
I previously had a corbeau fx1pro, which was so wide at the base, that it would rub on the transmission tunnel. I'd be very sore after an event with that one, as it was too big in the leg area, so I'd brace myself against the edge. My legs would end up bruised after a full weekend of driving. Yet it was fine on my upper body.

In my old mini, I ran a corbeau forza....and that fit fine in a classic mini, so it's about as small as you can get, but it felt like I was sitting on iron after about 20 minutes.

hammer wrote:Were you thinking about putting in a seat belt bar? Or is there a strong enough metal attachment point behind the seat to directly bolt the harness to?

Yes, my thought is to run a bar horizontally at the correct height for the shoulder belts that also reinforces the sides of the main hoop from being pushed inward by a tree.

Depending on how much distance is needed between the shoulder-belt-bar and seat back, that bar may do triple duty as a chassis stiffener by also attaching the cage to the edge of the door opening near the hard top mounting bracket (black w/ 2 holes near the left edge of this picture).

This spot seems to be a hardpoint in the monocoque. It's where the OEM shoulder belt mounts and where the side impact protection bars transfer their load from the door to the chassis.

Any comments from our tech inspection gurus?

Paul

Word of advice-a seat is supposed to fit SNUG. The object is to keep you from moving in an impact.
Worse I ever got hurt in a race car was driving a borrowed car that had a seat the was much larger that what i'd use. Something happened in front of me + I spun the car to miss it-and someone behind me did the same thing. We met nerf bar to nerf bar -total sideways impact- and I got bounced around in the seat. With extra room,your body gets a chance to get a running start before you slap up against the sides. Not a mark on the car-everyone who saw it said it was a minor hit-but my ribs + hip were sore for a couple of days.