Im looking for your opinions on FIA approved seats. Im looking for competition seats at a grassroots price. I dont want to spend $800 per seat for my track car. Comfort and safety are the number one priorities right now. I have looked in the the Sparco print 5 seat as an option. what do you guys recommend?

 

Kirkey.

Sparco, OMP, etc are all really nice and look cool, but dollar for dollar you cant beat a properly installed aluminum race seat. I also feel that most bargain Sparco type seats flex too much to be useful in a track car. The Sparcos also weigh more

 

I too am a big fan of a properly braced Kirkey aluminum seat. Price can't be beat and they don't expire. And they are comfortable!

 

When a FIA seat "expires" all you have to do is add a seat back brace... I sprung for a FIA composite seat for the new build, but I have run Kirkeys and UltraShield seats in the past, and I have also liked them a lot.

 

Momo Start:
http://www.lpiracing.com/Momo-Seat-S...525p124028.htm

 

The composite seats were never designed to have holes drilled in them though, and may fail around the drilled holes.

 

Oddly most race organizations do not require the seat to be actually bolted to the brace, which again IMHO is a mistake, and you NEVER want to bolt a composite seat in unless it was designed to be in the first place.

I guess the line to be drawn is if it is a race car, or a car you occasionally drive on the track and want some cool looking seats in it.

 

At a minimum RaceTech seats are FIA -and- also set up to allow for a seat back brace if your sanctioning body requires it.

 

Proper way would be to epoxy a phenolic block to the back of the seat and use keenserts for the brace attachment locations. The larger the phenolic block the better spread of the load.

 

Cobra FIA seats are alos avaiable at good pricing

 

I went to their site and didn't see where they are FIA certed. Maybe that is why they don't expire. List of currently FIA approved seats was really long but no Kirkey or Ultrashield.

GD

 

Plastic seats need to be FIA, metal seats generally do not.

 

Kirkey are not FIA which is why they typically require back braces for most sanction racing divisions (along with it being a good idea). FIA seats are certified/tested without back braces to not fold in half on a rearward collision (to some reasonable limit).

In most cases, you either get a FIA approved seat and deal with the expiration; or you get a non-FIA approved seat and use a back brace.

 

are back braces not required anyways now with a lot of sanctioning bodies?

 

They typically aren't required with FIA approved seats. Typically, as each body has their own rules so you never know. But I haven't seen one in the USA require a back brace for a FIA approved seat.

 

One of the recent SCCA FastTracks was asking for member feedback on requiring them on FIA seats next year...