1G How to repurpose stock sliders for race seat, tall driver, Corbeau FX1

NordicSaab · Apr 28, 2015

Hey all,

I figured I would provide what I did in re purposing the stock sliders for a race seat. There is significant mis-information on the site that this cannot be done effectively. The information is incorrect. I am 6'4" with a very long torso and I utilized the stock sliders and created a side mount setup with a Corbeau FX1. I also did nothing to recontour the floor pan. If I needed more room that would have been the next step. The only change to the floor pan was some light hammering on the inner trans tunnel.

Pictures below.

NordicSaab · Apr 28, 2015

Photos are posted below.

For those curious, the plating on the seat slider is gold cobalt-zinc. To be clear gold cobalt-zinc is not a color it is a type of metal plating. Very cheap process.

NordicSaab · Apr 28, 2015

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theamsoilguy · Apr 28, 2015

Looks nice and way simpler than what I did. However I have a full roll cage in my car and we have rules about helmet clearances. My seat is almost touching the floor and tipped inwards and its still tight. Can you show some pics of you in the car and helmet clearances? I have to modify my rally car I just bought and your solution might work for me in that car. The seat is currently bolted to the floor and I cant reach the pedals

PS: There are also rules\guidelines for the height of the bar to support the shoulder straps, yours looks to be on the low side. Just a FYI.

decathect · Apr 28, 2015

Doesn't look like your car is caged, correct me if i'm wrong. Clearing the ceiling is one thing, clearing front downtubes/halo is a whole different story and basically requires you to get the seat somewhere around 3" lower.

If i recall correctly you want shoulder straps to be angled maybe 0* - 15* upwards from the harness bar to the holes in the seats. Hard to tell in his picture, it may not be that far off.

NordicSaab · Apr 29, 2015

theamsoilguy said:
Looks nice and way simpler than what I did. However I have a full roll cage in my car and we have rules about helmet clearances. My seat is almost touching the floor and tipped inwards and its still tight. Can you show some pics of you in the car and helmet clearances? I have to modify my rally car I just bought and your solution might work for me in that car. The seat is currently bolted to the floor and I cant reach the pedals

PS: There are also rules\guidelines for the height of the bar to support the shoulder straps, yours looks to be on the low side. Just a FYI.

For me, being very long torso-ed. I have two inches with the race seat padding. If I remove the padding (like I do for autocrosses and track days) I will have the same two inches without the seat padding. The seat is basically sitting on the floor. and only sacrifices an inch above the stock mounting bolts. In regard to the attack angle of the belts I am right at 15 degrees. It is something I need to figure out a solution to.

NordicSaab · Apr 29, 2015

decathect said:
Doesn't look like your car is caged, correct me if i'm wrong. Clearing the ceiling is one thing, clearing front downtubes/halo is a whole different story and basically requires you to get the seat somewhere around 3" lower.

If i recall correctly you want shoulder straps to be angled maybe 0* - 15* upwards from the harness bar to the holes in the seats. Hard to tell in his picture, it may not be that far off.

Car only has a 1/2 cage right now so no halo or forward tubes but the front plates are in. The rules i've seen state the drivers helmet must be below the top line of the roll cage, with this solution I will meet that rule when the front cage is installed.

decathect · Apr 29, 2015

The overall height of your slider/endplate assembly more or less the same as mine, the only difference being my sliders mount to a vertical location ~2 inches below the stock stamped/threaded seat mounts, due to my floor restructure. We also have a cage that is as tight to the A pillar as it could possibly be - it is literally welded to the pillar. I'd be very interested in seeing what happens when you get the rest of the cage in there, please update us when that is done. Heck, if you wouldn't mind, for comparison purposes, could you measure the distance from the bottom of the seat bucket to the ceiling? Wondering how it compares to mine.

A big challenge with doing the front down tubes is balancing vertical space with lateral space. You can get it higher if you go inside the A-pillar, but then it will almost certainly touch the side of your helmet if your head moves around much. If you move more towards being below the A-pillar, then you sacrifice vertical space for lateral space. Either way, DSMs have very little ceiling real-estate to make it happen, and I've heard the same gripe from various other DSM road/stage rally racers.

If this is in response to my post about re-fabricating my seat floor - I never made any implication that it is required to come up with a proper seat mount. It is just what I did to make the seat mounting, in our car, with our cage, and our seat, and our drivers, turn out well. I'm very happy with the result. My car was a former rally car and the car builder had taken a sledge to the tunnel to try to get some room. I'm not a fan of band-aid or hackjobs like that, it looked terrible and didn't really provide optimal seat mounting, so I started from the ground floor. Literally! I don't consider my way the only way, so I'm glad you're contributing other ideas.

I'm actually a regional tech chief for a national racing series, I enjoy seeing how other people go about the same task, please continue to post more as you get the car together!

NordicSaab · Apr 29, 2015

decathect said:
The overall height of your slider/endplate assembly more or less the same as mine, the only difference being my sliders mount to a vertical location ~2 inches below the stock stamped/threaded seat mounts, due to my floor restructure. We also have a cage that is as tight to the A pillar as it could possibly be - it is literally welded to the pillar. I'd be very interested in seeing what happens when you get the rest of the cage in there, please update us when that is done. Heck, if you wouldn't mind, for comparison purposes, could you measure the distance from the bottom of the seat bucket to the ceiling? Wondering how it compares to mine.

A big challenge with doing the front down tubes is balancing vertical space with lateral space. You can get it higher if you go inside the A-pillar, but then it will almost certainly touch the side of your helmet if your head moves around much. If you move more towards being below the A-pillar, then you sacrifice vertical space for lateral space. Either way, DSMs have very little ceiling real-estate to make it happen, and I've heard the same gripe from various other DSM road/stage rally racers.

If this is in response to my post about re-fabricating my seat floor - I never made any implication that it is required to come up with a proper seat mount. It is just what I did to make the seat mounting, in our car, with our cage, and our seat, and our drivers, turn out well. I'm very happy with the result. My car was a former rally car and the car builder had taken a sledge to the tunnel to try to get some room. I'm not a fan of band-aid or hackjobs like that, it looked terrible and didn't really provide optimal seat mounting, so I started from the ground floor. Literally! I don't consider my way the only way, so I'm glad you're contributing other ideas.

I'm actually a regional tech chief for a national racing series, I enjoy seeing how other people go about the same task, please continue to post more as you get the car together!

Thanks for the feedback. I havn't decided how far this car will go in regard to the cage. At one point I thought I would for t a full 10 point, but the car currently has a very Pro-Street feel to it that I like alot. It is nice not having to climb over tubes to get in and out of the car. I have another car that is a SCCA Club racing car (not DSM) that is fulfilling the track duties.

In regard to this being a reply to your post. It is/was not. I saw that post and really liked how that was gone about. Quality in that build was top notch. It was more in reply to some very old threads about mounting a seat and retaining stock sliders. Many stated that the seat would be too high, wrong angle, etc... I feel what I came up with is/was the best solution without re-contouring the floor. Hopefully this helps someone that is considering doing what I did.

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1G How to repurpose stock sliders for race seat, tall driver, Corbeau FX1

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