Mounting Recaros (pictures, 1G)

[DrZiplok]

After my driver's seat died, I tried a Cobeau Carrera. Aside from it being too small, the supplied bracket (made by Wedge Engineering) was not particularly wonderful, requiring some significant modifications before it would fit and work with the seat.

So when I replaced the Carrera with a seat that fits me (a Recaro Style), I decided that I was going to make my own brackets.

The first problem with this undertaking is that the Recaro has a much wider mounting track than the stock seats. Since the stock mounts are offset, this means that one of the Recaro's sliders will be over the side of the drive tunnel.

To work around this, I decided to use 2" x 1/8" angle steel in an 'S' configuration for the inboard mount. The outboard mount would be a 'C' section composed of the same material.

 

[DrZiplok]

Here is the inboard bracket, end-on. Note the washers padding the bracket further in - I will upgrade to larger washers when the brackets come back out to be painted.

 

[DrZiplok]

Here's another view of the inboard bracket. Note how the upper half of the bracket is shorter and mounted towards the rear; it's the same length as the base of the slider, and has to be this short to allow the slider to be bolted to the base of the seat. Rear-setting provides the greatest range of movement for the seat.

 

[DrZiplok]

And here's the inboard bracket mounted to the seat. The alignment of the two L sections was determined by placing the seat in the car and balacing it on small blocks of wood. At this height, the top half of the slider is just scraping the carpet at the rear when the seat is in my preferred driving position. To go any lower (which would be desirable) either the carpet will have to be cut or I will have to take to the tunnel with a hammer.

 

[DrZiplok]

The outboard bracket was a much simpler undertaking. Here it is mounted to the seat.

 

[DrZiplok]

Here's the seat in the car. For such a wide base, the back isn't all that bad. There's plenty of clearance, although you have to reach behind to get at the backrest adjuster.

 

[DrZiplok]

The brackets actually bolted down to the floor. Note that the front mount points are actually angled relative to the brackets; tightening the front nuts helps, but the bracket really needs to be bent to the correct angle.

 

[igs]

Wow, looks good. How much do the brackets weigh?

 

[DrZiplok]

I honestly don't know; I wanted to use 1/4" Aluminium, but couldn't find anything better than 1/8", which is far too weak for this application. I'd guess a good 15-20kg all up. The seat itself is pretty light; the base pan appears to be glass-filled plastic on a tube frame, and I understand the back is a steel shell.

At some point I'm going to pull it apart and install some fans, for a cheap version of their Vent system, since all the openings are right there...

 

[REV MOTORSPORTS]

do u happen to have the dimensions for this install????? Im installing r1's into my car but i cant seem to figure out the dimensions i need

 

[loreak]

cant you buy brackets that are premade?