Well I randomly decided to buy a F1Spec Fiberglass Race Bucket. Quite a damn good deal for $250 shipped. I'm going to break down this write up in three parts, my review of the company's service, my review of the product, and my installation of the product.

F1Spec, who what and why

F1Spec or "WU'S INT'L TRADE LLC" (I got the second name from the invoice attatched to the USPS shipping confirmation) is a company that makes pure copies of well known seats (Spoon, Recaro). The company itself needs to work on communication within itself, but communication with the customer is pretty damn good. Reasons why I say this are

1. When I ordered the seat I used a Visa Gift Card. They called me to ask why the address of the credit card didn't match my address, well that's why. But props for them actually calling me, and not at an ungodly hour either, it was only 7:00 PM.

2. When I received the seat I just got the seat... no sidemounts, or sliders. It took me an extra week to recieve the sidemounts and sliders, but they sent them to me. So that's alright.

3. When I received the sidemounts and sliders... I didn't get brackets. It could've been that I asked them for sidemounts and sliders... but I told them I received nothing but the seat itself... uhhh okay. Another weird thing is that I got one left and one right sidemount, and two left sliders. No way to attach any of them to each other. No bolts nuts or screws were included. Oh well. Hardware store trip only cost me $4.30 in the end.

I don't know what's going on with the company, they could just be busy, or it could just be because they're new. I think they've been around for two years now, though... so most of these kinks should be out of the way. But everyone makes mistakes, right?

The seat

The seat is fantastic. I'm very very surprised of how awesome the quality is. The cover is kinda cheap, but knowing that this is a replica of a well known brand (Spoon), if I need to I can buy new covers for the seats from Spoon. The harness slots are sturdy and wouldn't pop out at all, and the seat has very little flex in it. No flex at all when actually mounted inside the cabin. This is perfect for me to use as a daily driver seat, and at 250 shipped all I can say is "hells yeah".

When sitting in the seat, it easily sits two inches lower than the stock seats. The steering wheel literally looks a lot smaller than it was before. I think that contrary to what everyone believes, the stock steering wheel isn't too big for the car, the seats are just too high! Also using the stock seatbelts with this seat was very easy, too. The stock seatbelts are made by Tanaka, so they'll keep you planted better than any other OEM seatbelt anyway. That and I don't have the money for Tanaka 4 point harness, so I'll settle for OEM Tanaka 3-points.

Installation

Very easy... kinda. I took the sidemounts that they gave me and I threw away the sliders. I just decided to use the stock brakets/sliders from under the stock seats. I had to drill one new hole on the sliders on each side, left and right. I lined it up with the sidemounts they gave me, so use one stock hole and one new drilled hole. I used the second slot on the sidemount from the outside.



Mounting inside the car took an hour. This is because the #@%#@^%# carpet kept bunching up and prevented me from screwing the bolts in!!!! I ended up taking a utility knife and re-cutting my stock carpet to accommodate my tools. But at least I didn't have to drill any new holes in the chassis. The stock sliders were able to find their way into the stock locations. This is partly due to the very nice design of the sidemounts. The sidemounts have slots in them so you can angle it a little to accommodate any mounting situation.

Each side of the sidemount has three mounting holes. On the front I used the middle hole and on the rear I used the very bottom. Excellent seating position for me.



Here is the seat mounted in the car. Note how I have the lap belt routed through the side. This is very useful, because it allows the sash belt to rest on top, and I don't have to reach and look for the seatbelt if it falls behind the seat when I take it off.

 

Here is a comparison between the stock seat (left) and the F1Spec Seat.



Lastly, I'm able to close the door without it hitting the seat, although I can only fit one finger between the door and the seat.

 

not bad at all, nice idea with using the right side of the stock bracket and drilling holes and good job on the install are u going to go for a matching pair later on?

Robb

 

Yeah, I do believe I'll have a matching pair before spring, but right now I need the passenger seat to recline so I can load and unload from the hatch easy.

 

I looked into these seats before and theyre not FIA approved. So if you want to track youre car, it will not pass their inspection.

Where did you get these seats for so cheap?

 

There aren't any generic bucket seats that ARE FIA approved (unless you want to pay double their price)... and FIA approval only matters on dedicated race cars, not for track day street cars...

Hell, 90% of the seats Bride makes aren't FIA approved, and are only safe to use with people weighing 220 or less.

Even in D1 Japan there are cars that use non-FIA seats and they do just fine.

 

But again, you cant say all non-FIA approved seats are created equal. Some are much worst than the others, while some could be FIA approved if the company spent the money to get it approved.

 

Regardless, a sturdy fiberglass fixed back bucket seat without FIA approval shouldn't be thought of as unsafe.

I'm not planning on having it as a dedicated race car, so who cares?

 

There are different grades of fiberglass. I would trust Bride seats even though they arent FIA approved because they have made a name for themselves. Are you sure these are exact same seats as Spoon seats?

So where did you end up getting the seat for that good of a price.

 

Well they're actually more "Mugen", but whatever. That's just a name to me.

I got them from F1spec direct.

 

I wonder how these compare with the Memoryfab seats. Those are pretty decently priced as well.

 

Back from the dead! How's your seat holding up after 9 months of use?