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gofer
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- Feb 18, 2006
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South Gilbert,
Arizona
11MAY2016 - Final Sparco Evo II Seat & CNC Staging Brake Mounting
I came to the conclusion that if I wanted the Sparco seat in my car and not in my living room I had to take the leap and forget the idea of having bolt in brackets. Doing so would mean eliminating the OE seat brackets which means I could never use my black leather driver seat again.
My go to fabricator doesn't just weld bungs and exhausts, he typically builds NASA race cages so I spoke with him about his thoughts on installing the seat and he said bring it by his place and he'd knock it out no problem. I told him my concerns with the headliner clearance with my helmet as well as door panel clearance with the seat back, I also asked him to mount the CNC stage brake and a place to bolt the stock seat belt receiver.
BING BANG BOOM, some magic happened, and then he called me to come get the car...
To fix the head clearance issue he removed the factory seat brackets that are spot welded to the floorboard. After dropping the seat to the floor the issue to push the seat further towards the center of the car was the problem (because of the door panel clearance). He removed the floorboard around the driveshaft tunnel and pushed it as far towards the center as possible, then welded int a piece of 3/8" steel. In the image below you can see the piece he welded in to create a new tunnel and where the old tunnel was, doing this pushed the seat inboard approximately 2".
I told him I wanted to retain the factory 3pt seat belt, as using a 4 or 5pt harness is bad news without a roll cage. In the event of a crash, the OE 3pt seatbelt allows you to fall towards the center of the car if the roof collapses. In a 4 or 5 point harness, you don't have that option of falling forward because it holds you up upright and in place, and the crushed roof meets your head and will compress your spine which means your dead if the roof crushes. I don't PLAN on rolling the car but I'd like to have a shot at surviving if I ever do. He welded another chunk of steel to the side of the new driveshaft tunnel for support and welded up a nut for the OE 17mm seatbelt bolt to thread into. I used a rear seat cloth seatbelt because it was shorter and a lot more flexible than the fronts, that way I could use it with the Sparco seat.
The mount for the stage brake he placed on the hump on the floorboard, up against the kick panel which was a perfect location to launch with the brake and put my hand right on the shifter.
After he was done fabricating everything up this is what the finished result looked like. I still needed to drill a hole in the floor to run the wideband back down to the exhaust and then coat the floor and underside of the car to prevent corrosion but I was amazed at all the work he did and how well it fit.
For the finished look I quickly installed the carpet and rerouted the seatbelt harness to see what it looked like and how it drove, I don't think I took a corner going slower than 40mph even at the stop lights.
So I took a ton of pictures and couldn't have been happier with my decision, time to make a gaming chair out of the stock leather seat now I guess.
As far as the weight savings benefits of this, they aren't too bad either and I ended up needing the heaviest of the Sparco seats to fit me.
Stock power leather seat - 47.6lbs
Stock seat bracing/hardware - 2.8lbs
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Sparco Evo II seat - 20.5lbs
Sparco aluminum side mount brackets - 3.3lbs
Floor mount and seat bracing - 4lbs
Total weight loss - 22.6lbs