Seat harness combination advice

Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:09 pm

Evening guys,

Ihave the following in my demon tweaks basket, just looking for a reason not to click the buy button! Looks like a really good deal - I'm going for the best I can afford when it comes to safety, some good advice. The better deal though, the better!

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/Search.do ... S%2FS867FB

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/Search.do ... %2FS490BLK

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/Search.do ... =OMPDA802B

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/Performan ... 13/0/15718

Would I need anything else for a 320 coupe to sort the seating out? I've done some searching and seen the pros and cons of sliding rails, but think simple and safe will work best. Is welding really required if the above fit the bill?

Cheers!

Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:34 pm

I would be welding in some seat rails to bolt the seat mounts to. The floor on the E30 is not flat enough to just bolt the side mounts down. Out of interest have you fitted a roll cage? If not then I would think long and hard about fitting harness belts, speaking from experience of rolling a car with out a cage fitted(if I had harness belts fitted I would be dead now!!!).

Simon

Sat Oct 22, 2011 9:01 pm

Ahh I see re the seat rails - makes sense. What would you recommend? Someone here used the original seat rails welded those in and the mounts to those.

It will have a roll cage - I'm aiming to get it into the www.pbmwc.co.uk for March... hopefuly!

Sat Oct 22, 2011 9:15 pm

You can normally bolt the seat brackets straight to the original seat fixing points

Sat Oct 22, 2011 9:20 pm

Dan, when you talk about seat brackets you don't mean seat mounts do you? Sorry I'm a bit new here just to clarify!

Sat Oct 22, 2011 9:23 pm

The drivers seat on mine we welded in some strengthening plates with captive nuts and where the floor wasn't level we welded some boxes. Have a look at www.mantasport.co.uk and under projects, Simons BMW Rally Car and there is a picture of what we did.

Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:17 pm

You have to be careful about seat height if you intend to race the car. When wearing a helmet your head should be below the roll cage for understandable reasons. Have you got a copy of the MSA blue book. (Motor Sports Association rule book) This will give you all the guide lines for racing in the UK. My car is built to the rally regs so slightly different. There is no point in fitting it now only to have to do it again at a later date.

Simon

Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:31 pm

Get the seat you want to use (that one looks fine), bolt it to the mounts.
Get the steering wheel you are going to use and fit it.

Sit in the car with the seat loose (be carefull not to tip it over) and mark where it is on the floor when you are in the correct postion. Work mainly on peddle position and use a steering wheel spacer if you need to bring the wheel out.

When you are in the right place mark the floor. If this falls over some of the standard mounting holes you could use those, if not you want to re enforce the floor and use new captive nuts.

Make sure you re enforce the floor with welded spreader plates at least where you fit your harness mounting bolts as the harness should take most of the stress in the impact.

When you put the cage in the cross member the harnesses connect to should ideally be only a few inches behind the seat as you dont want lots of slack in them.

Finally consider a HANS system.

Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:24 pm

Cheers all for the advice,much appreciated!

Sun Oct 23, 2011 8:33 pm

No worries.. there are also a few build threads and quite a bit of advice on the PBMW drivers forum (Motor Sport section on SELOC)

Tue Oct 25, 2011 9:58 am

Those Cobra mounting bolts can be picked up for less than a quid at your local fixings place. They're just zinc coated 12.9 M8 cap heads!