[craigawoodman]

Good luck with the gymnastics you will need to develop to get in and out of the car, with the larger side bolsters. It sure ain't pretty or elegant.



One guy in QLD had a GT40 replica. I don't think I could get my butt low enough to get into the seat without falling into it. God knows how I would get out, but I think there would be some crawling on hands and knees involved. Some things are just too low.

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[flash]

lol - i never had a problem with that. i only run convertibles with welded doors, the way god intended real race cars to be. in and out the top.

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[craigawoodman]

Flash



You never struck me as a "Dukes of Hazard" type of guy, but I have only talked to y on the phone.



Racing in the rain in an open top car would not be my idea of fun. I like AC Cobra replicas, the new Elfin cars here and Caterhams, but not sure I could live with one. I think it would be like being in a relationship with a dominatrix, lots of pain for some enjoyment and likely to leave scars.

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[flash]

if there is no fear of imminent death, then i'm not having fun



by the way, i had a couple of those chargers. tried diving in like that. not fun. kept wracking my back with the door lock button. ouch.



i never even drive any of my toys in the rain, let alone race in it. almost never have. almost never will. i'd rather let them keep the fees. i only raced once int he rain, and i was being paid to drive somebody else's car, so i couldn't bail. i'd never race my own. i'd just drop out instead.

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[Cloud9...68]

Funny, the owner of one of the DE outfits I used to go with jokingly said he's tempted to charge extra on rainy days, because of the amazing learning opportunity associated with driving on a traction-compromised surface. I did it once - an amazing and amusing amount of slip-sliding around going on, with sometimes comical amounts of mud getting on cars following the numerous "offs".



Yes, getting in and out will become more interesting. Hopefully the detachable steering wheel will help. That and being a major fitness fanatic.

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[pmason]

I have the Recaro SPG XL, and I used Brace Kruse brackets and the fit fine. That said, I did try and mount a Sparco halo set with the Sparco adaptors, if I remember right the holes are elongated some, I had to elongate them a little more to get them to work. I just couldn't get into the car with the halo seat and my helment on, I cold bearly get in without the helmet. Tried sliders, tilting it back, etc... but everything I tried, so I ended up going back to the SPG and the right side net.

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[craigawoodman]

A detachable steering wheel will help getting in, but getting out will still require you to turn sideways, put both legs over the side bolster and pull yourself out of the car. If you are a fitness nut, then it will probably look like ballet, but I must look like a walrus falling off a rock.



It is just the angle of your legs and that you have them over a rod, so y cannot really use them to lift yourself, so you have to pull/push off the top of the seat is your arms, while ducking your head at the same time.

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[Rap]

I decided not to do a full cage because I could not get into the car I tried that had one. In fact I felt like a fat non athletic moron and decided ok I guess I really am middle aged! My replacement knee just doesn't bend that much!

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[Cloud9...68]

Yeah, ingress/egress wasn't exactly a major priority when these cars were designed back in the 70s. A co-worker of mine who races a Firebird in NASA advised me to mount the seat as low and as far to the right as possible, to give myself the most room possible to get in and out, and also to allow my body weight to most advantageously impact the car's center of gravity. Makes sense, and it looks this approach will actually simplify the seat install, while actually have the seat better centered relative to the steering wheel than the stock location. So, today's project is to finish the install, or at least get it to where it's ready to do any further needed modifications to the mounts. I'll take pictures of the steps, and post when I'm done.

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[pmason]

Yes, I have a removable steering wheel, the main problem was the cage. When building the new car I had the cage made much better to get the bars closer to the roof. Much easier getting in and out now, just haven't tried a halo seat again, maybe when the seat expires I will try it again.

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[Cloud9...68]

These are the guys I went with for my roll bar/harness bar:



http://www.hanksvillehotrods.com/Project...fault.aspx



They've done over 70 924/944/968 cages, and really know their stuff. The bar they're building me will be expandable to add a full cage later if and when I go door-to-door racing, and the owner, Hank (who's chief of tech for NASA Rocky Mountain region), was very helpful in recommending which pieces of interior paneling I need to remove to enable him to place the bars as far to the outer edges of the car as possible (to increase room, as well as to add structural rigidity) without having to remove my whole interior. And for full cages, he recommends having the door bars extend way out to the door skins to improve ingress/egress. So far, I've been very impressed with my interactions with Hank; hopefully the quality of the product will live up the the great reviews these guys have gotten.

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[pmason]

Actually I went with Hank on my cage, we started with his standard cage, pretty much added every option bar, added an X in the main hoop, also had him modify the door bars like my last car. The only problem we had was the dash bar, it was a little too long. Even then I ended up cutting it back out as I couldn't get the dash to fit. Once out and I fitted the dash I had my welder then add a new dash bar, it goes through the vent tube under the steering column and cleared everything (yea you have to remove the HVAC). Anyway it fits very nice, the welder also said the fit was very good he didn't really have to do much.

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[Cloud9...68]

Glad to hear you had a good overall experience with Hank. He seems like a really good guy.

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[Eric_Oz_S2]

I simply drilled new holes in the Sparco brackets. As has been said, the stock bracket holes end up to far inboard. But, because the brackets are kind of a bottom of a 'Z' shape, there is room to drill new holes just offset enough to match the floor holes. The brey-krause brackets also work but you have to mount them like L L which is a little ugly.



Cloud - where are you mounting the sub straps to? I was going to get the GT3 sub bar for the passenger seat as I think it is a direct fit and allows the sub bar to move with the seat. Not sure if this is allowed in some racing regs though unless factory spec (ie in a GT3 only).



Eric

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[Cloud9...68]

Yes, I finally figured out that by flipping the mounting bracket closest to the door such that the slotted mounting holes point outboard, leaving the bracket closest to the tunnel with the mounting holes inboard, so under the seat, the mounting brackets fit nicely over the existing seat rails. As an added bonus, this configuration moved the seat a couple of inches closer to the center of the car, which actually is better centered relative to the steering. I could mate the front two captive nuts to existing slots in the seat mounting brackets without any modifications, but had to drill new holes in the brackets to get the rear captive nuts to mate. Not a big deal, as the holes ended up bing in areas with plenty of metal to drill the holes.



But to get to this point, I had to build a very McGyver-esque frame to allow me to keep the two brackets in the same positions relative to each other as when they are connected to the seat, without the seat being in the way of my line of sight. Took me many hours to build this contraption, but it really took the guesswork out of where to drill the holes. I'll post pictures when I get the chance, but between this and other car trouble in the family, I've been extremely busy.



As far as the sub straps, this is something I haven't thought much about yet - I haven't even ordered my harness yet. I definitely don't plan to put a harness in the passenger side - I'll keep the stock seatbelts on that side, which should work with the Corbeau racing seat I have there. Any suggestions as to how to mount the sub strap on the drivers side would be appreciated. Praying that it isn't nearly as time-consuming as fitting the seat has turned out to be!

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[pmason]

Remember, your going to have to install a mounting point for the lap belt on the inside (tunnel side) as the stock location was part of the seat.

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[Cloud9...68]

[quote name='pmason' timestamp='1363690215' post='140232']

Remember, your going to have to install a mounting point for the lap belt on the inside (tunnel side) as the stock location was part of the seat.

[/quote]

As with pretty much everything I've done on this project, every step is something I've never done before, and this definitely includes mounting the harness. Are you saying I should wait until I receive my harness (I haven't even ordered it yet) and install it before I permanently mount the seat? How much space do I need between the tunnel and the seat for the harness lap belt mounting point? Thanks.

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[pmason]

If your seat is fixed not on sliders which I think is the case you just need to mount the eyebolt it just behind the seat but against the tunnel or up on the tunnel some. Here is what I did, if you look under the car in the tunnel you will see a structure/stiffener member going up and across the tunnel, that is about the right place to mount it. I drilled a hole through that near the botton of the tunnel. Just to check placement, drill a small 1/8 hole and see where it comes out on the inside of the car to confirm the location. While the harden eyebolts usually come with the harness, but you can just pick one of the eyebolts to install it. I would install it before the seat (well mock the seat location) as it will be hard to get the drill etc in there later. You also have the sub belts, but I think you said you were going with a bar of some kind, I mounted them through the floor.

I can take some pictures if you want.

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[Cloud9...68]

You're correct that I'm not using sliders - I'm bolting my seat mounts directly to the captive nuts in the stock runners. However, there are six captive nuts, one in the front, and two in the back. The ones in the back are 2-3 inches apart. I'm only able to use the front four captive nuts - the seat mounts are too short to capture all six captive nuts. So the rear-most captive nuts are unused, and easily accessible. Rathar than drilling a hole in my tunnel, couldn't I just mount the harness to this rear captive nut on the side closest to the tunnel? Thanks.

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[pmason]

Yea, but I almost positive that not will pass a tech inspection. You have to think how much force will be pulling this if anything happens. Your shoulder belts will tie directly to the harness bar on the cage, but I have seen them draped over the bar and mount to the rear seat lap belt mounts, but that isn't going to work for the lap belt, even then more to stretch.

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