backstory: The vert is a tight fit with a sparco seat and a helmet for drift and autox days, aka I dont fit without the top down. Which is all well and good but the local drifting isnt much fond of drop tops with the roof down if you dont have a roll bar and when its raining i would really rather get the interior soaked.

So I was wondering if the frame rails if you want to call them that(pictures below), that run left to right that the factory seats mount to is necessary? Do it provide the chassis some torsional support(seems unlikely)? Possibly just to disperse the weight of the seat and driver throughout the floor pan? If its only for dispersing the weight i could come up with something a little better that would end up making the seat sit lower.


I didnt initially take this picture, but it helps illustrate what I am talking about.

 

The rails are probably supposed to bolt to the front of that rib. As for structure, well, yeah, it does serve some purpose, but I'm sure you could remove it and weld in something that lies lower that will provide the same structural properties. 1/4" steel plate comes to mind, if you can manage to weld it nicely to the body.

 

I was thinking 3/16" aluminum. I figure someone tall has had to have run into this problem at some point before.

 

Why aluminum? Is that all you have? You wouldn't be able to weld it down, welding would be best for strength and rigidity versus bolting a similar thickness Al piece.

 

Ryan, trade me steering wheels!!!!!! Lol.


I'm running into the same problem with side mount seats bolted to the stock bracket/sliders..... I'm going to put my drill to work and make some unsafe ****.

 

just get different rails that mount lower
dont mod the car mod the seats

 

Is it on rails or solid mounted?

I think those "rails" serve three purposes- they stiffen the floorpan, help tie the sill structure to the transmission tunnel and finally, provide a mount for the seat.
To (potentially) compromise two of those functions in favor of the third seems like a bad trade-off.

Not "probably", definitely.
Steel plate would add some weight but I don't think it would duplicate the structural function of the stock strut-type pieces.

Indeed.
Run without rails if necessary.

 

The stock seat rails actually sit about an inch above the floor rails, so if you modify the seat rail mounting tabs, you can drop them about an inch. There are also aftermarket rails (that come with the made in China seats and are probably on eBay) which are much flatter. But you will have to adapt these aftermarket rails to the floor pan.

 

I'll have to look into this when I get my shell.

 

Here is a couple of pics of the idea i had to remove those and make a seat sit lower without compromising rigidity.

If you cut out those ribs DO NOT cut both sides of the cars out at once, this WILL cause the chassis to flex and you will not have a square ride again. These ribs do add tremendous support to the chassis. The pan is 1/2" tall. What i have drawn in the pics is out of 11ga (.120"). I personally do not recommend going with less than that. I may end up doing this in the next couple weeks as I have the same problem you do.

When doing this make sure not to weld too much in one spot, as this will warp the floorboard. I recommend to stitch weld about a 1/2" weld every 2", focusing on the 11ga more, obviously. When you weld, make sure to take your time, make one weld then move to the other side of the pan to make another to not warp the floor.

In my opinion this design is very structural, if i end up cutting those ridges, this is what i will end up building. However, I am going to do whatever i can to get the seats to sit low enough without cutting out the ridges...

 

I may end up just having to take out the sliders for now and drilling the mounting bracket where it needs to be. until I can come up with something to sit lower with sliders.

And brandon, I already said I didnt take that picture. I dont have a Nardi Classic wheel right now, I have a momo mod 69.

 

fiberglass resin fumes.......

I should have known better seeing an apex afc in there knowing damn well you have rtek and a BLACK on BLACK car.

I'm probably not going to run sliders either. Dont feel bad. I dont have the headroom to run sidemount buckets using the stock brackets.... The top-most part of my seat is literally like two and a half inches from the roof if not higher. I tried to make it work with their sliders included with the seats as well.

I can't really mess with it until i finish other stuff.... Too time consuming and my car has parts, hoses, tools, cardboard and junk everywhere.....


Speaking of seats, atleast open practice and non-tandem allows knocks.....