Installing Corbeau FX1 Seats in an FD
 

After doing a fair amount of research on racing seats to fit in an FD, I settled on Corbeau FX1 seats.

Criteria:

Size: I have to fit.
I am 5'11" 223 lbs.
38" waist, 46" chest.

A lot of seats that fit in the FD, don't fit me.
The FX1 is a somewhat wide seat. It fits me much better than the stock seat.
There is also a "WIDE" version of the FX1. I doubt that seat would even be installable in an FD, as the space is so tight in an FD.

Cost: reasonable
Corbeau FX1 seats are $320 from Soloracer.com

BTW, customer service from Soloracer.com is excellent, I highly recommend them.

FIA certification: Not necessary.
This car is used in Autox, Track days, and possibly some hillclimbs, none of which require FIA certification.

As Corbeau seats are no longer certified by FIA, some other seat would be necessary for some events.

Color: While not extremely important, I wanted black and red seats. The FX1 fits this criteria.

Mounts: It would be nice to have sliding mounts. Corbeau has mounts for the FD that can be had with double locking sliders. The entire mount assemble is only slightly higher than FD mounts, about 1/4".

Here's another plug for Soloracer.com.

The sliders on the driver side mount didn't work properly. Brett from Soloracer had a new pair of sliders sent to me, they were on my porch 2 days after I contacted him. Awesome customer service! And this was after the seats had sat in a box for 4 months in the garage.

The problem with mounting seats in an FD is that many seats simply do not fit in the tight FD cockpit, and the Corbeau FX1 is no exception.

Following are posts on the mods I made to the FX1 seats to get them in my FD.

I don't believe these mods compromised the integrity of the seats, but judge for yourself.

IAC, it will nice to be use the steering wheel now for just turning the car, and not as an anchor to keep me in place.

Pics in following posts.

Drivers Side mods
 

The first three pics show the rear feet removed from the seat.

I tried mounting the seat with the feet intact, and there wasn't enough clearance with a helmet on. My car has a sunroof - without the sunroof clearance may have been OK.

This also put the seat a slightly higher layback angle, which I prefer. I forgot to measure the angle. I'll post it later if I remember to do it.

The feet were cut off with a cutoff wheel.

The next pic shows the section of the seat that had to be removed to clear the tranny tunnel.

The following pic shows the other side for comparison.

Drivers Side Mods - Wing
 

These 4 pics show the section of the "wing" that had to be removed from the left side of the seat.

Without doing this, the door would not shut.

This involved removing the curled section of the fiberglass from this area. Though the curl adds a lot of strength to the seat, it doesn't seem that it would make that much difference in this area.

There's a pic of the right side of the seat for comparison.

Passenger Side
 

The first pic is of the passenger seat wrapped in saran wrap.

On the driver seat I entirely removed the seat cover. My advice is to never do that.
The plastic pieces that secure the material around the belt holes are nearly impossible to remove without breaking some of the tabs that hold them together.

With the passenger seat I just disconnected the cable that holds the cover secure around the perimeter of the seat, peeled back the cover around the areas to cut and wrapped the seat up to keep out the fiberglass dust.

This is MUCH easier than an R&R on the cover. It's really a pain.

Next is a pic of the rear feet removed, and the mount attached.

The little black bit in the next shot is one of the removed feet.

You may have noticed that the amount of material removed on the passenger seat was a bit less than on the drivers seat. I was trying to get the drivers side as low as possible, and subsequently getting it on the mount as sliding properly was a bit more trouble, as the sliders would run in the rear of the seat, behind where it is bolted on.

It wasn't worth the trouble for the passenger side IMO to gain another 1/4".

The next two shots show the seat marked for removal of material where the wing would hit the door, and after it was removed. After taking that shot, I actually had to remove a bit more material.

Passenger Side Fitment
 

The first two pics show the fitment next to the door with the seat all the way forward and all the way back.

Following that are three shots showing the section next to the tranny tunnels that must be removed, the fitment next to the tranny tunnel. As you can see fitment is pretty tight. More material had to be removed than what was indicated in the first shot where the seat is marked.

Installed!
 

Here's a shot showing the seats from the front.

Now to put finish up a few things under the hood, put fluids back in and start it.

How do you like the head room? Enough room for a helmet? How hard is it to get in and out of the car? The corbeau rails had a single latch and a double latch option, which ones did you get?

Getting in and out is somewhat difficult, but not too bad.

The stock steering wheel is getting replaced with Sparco "Ring" wheel, which is a D 330mm D ring, and a Tekniq Auto quick release.

There's enough room with a helmet - just.
It was always pretty tight with the stock seats, as I had to lean the seat back farther than I liked just to fit.

The mounts are the double latch, which is what the 'double locking' sliders referred to.

If I remove both bottom seat cushions, the helmet clearance is a little better.

Just an update on the sliders.

If you buy Corbeau seats, do NOT buy the double locking sliders.

The double lockers are a great idea, poorly executed. The first set for the drivers side broke before I got the seat in the car - the lockers would not lock.

The 2nd set held up through 4 autox's, but the sliders themselves are not very sturdy, and loosened up quite a bit. I could grab the seat and rock it back and forth.

I took the seat out thinking some bolts had backed out.

The solution is to get 2 of the single locking sliders for each seat. This requires grabbing two handles to move the seat, but these sliders are solid.

The handles for the outboard slider on the drivers side and and the inboard slider on the passenger side must be bent to fit in the car, even more on the passenger side than the driver side.

The pics show the double locking slider, and the dual single lockers.

The roller in one of the pics is a piece that fell out of one of the driver side sliders as I was removing them from the mount.

The bent slider handle is for the passenger side. I had to heat it up with a torch to bend it far enough to clear the tranny tunnel.

I see you also flipped the sliders upside down. I didn't think about doing that with mine before I put them in. How did you get a hold of the 2 extra locks?

I don't think they are upside down.

The lock handle's would not allow flipping them over unless a spacer was used. Doing that would raise the seat up. I've done all I can to get the seats as low as possible.

To get the extra sliders I sent an email to info@corbeau.com describing the problems with the double locking sliders. Someone sent me back a phone # to confirm the problem on the phone.

Chadwick has had the same problem, he was the one that mentioned to contact Corbeau directly.

When mine came they were the other way around and had 6 washers in between the slider and bracket at each bolt and one between the bold head and the slider. I removed 4 at each one so there's still enough room for the handle mechanism to fit and they are level. As you can tell, the handle won't move with the seat the way mine were mounted. But that's ok because with the belt buckle being in a fixed spot I don't move the seats forward anyway. I hope that explanation makes sense.

Yes it does make sense.

So mine are upside down, and the seat is lower because of it. :)

Thats a lot of work you put into getthing the seats to fit. I just use the forza, and clubman in my fd with no rub. Everything does look good.

Oh well, it gets the job done. The washers aren't all that thick, two give the lever just enough room to work.

One concern I have now knowing that they are upside down is that pressure might put in areas it wasn't intended.

Say that part of internal of the slider is spot welded on, and right side up the spot welds serve to just hold the internals in place, but upside down they may become weight bearing, and eventually break.

Time will tell.

If the sliders become an issue again I will just install solid fixed mounts and be done with it.

That's great if you fit in the seat.

The FX1 is pretty comfy for me.

5'11" 220 lbs., 46 inch chest.

There is also a Momo seat I saw in another FD, and it fits me, also doesn't have fitment issues. Had I known, I would have got that seat.

how's the sparco steering wheel treating you? I just got mine, same size just not the D shape, and I was wondering how it fits cuz you're about the same size as I am.

Works great. Still large enough to easily steer, small enough that my legs never hit it while driving, the 'D' shape helps also.

There's also a snap-off quick release. It's much easier to get in and out of the car when on the trailer if the steering wheel is out of the way.

I autox'd the car for 4 sessions last weekend, and the Sparco wheel worked really well. This was on sticky 285/30/18 V710's.

Who knows, maybe mine are the ones that came bolted upside down. Considering the lever doesn't move forward and back with my seat as I said earlier it makes me wonder if yours are right.

I'll have to look at mine, but I think they travel with the seat.

Dan

I'm sure mine just came bolted upside down from the factory. But I'm not going to worry about it, as I said I don't move the seats forward or back anyways since I have them as far back as they can go. I'm 6'2" so unless someone short is driving the car, which I haven't given someone else the chance to drive it yet, the seat isn't moving.

Do you know if the FX1 Pro requires any modification?

Thanks

Sorry to bump up an old thread but I'm also curious about the same thing. FX1 Pro is 0.5 to 1 inch narrower compared to FX1. If you had the FX1 Pro would this give you enough room for fitment without modifications?

Good question.

If the Pro seat is 1 inch narrower, that is only .5 inch per side - pretty sure that won't fit, just needs less trimming.

You could always get a different style seat where tops of the bolsters go forward more than out.

I've seen Momo seats in an FD that fit without any modification.

Some of the Cobra seats would probably also fit.

Momo would be a lot less expensive than a Cobra.