So, I finally started the process of gutting my interior for a cage, and picked up some great race seats:



For those of you who have mounted competition seats before -- what bases do you use?

Sparco has custom-fit bases, as does RMR. Are the RMR bases good quality? How much lower are they than the Sparco bases? I plan to bolt the seat to side mounts, sliders, and then the seat base, so the lower the better.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

I'm actually doing the exact same thing you're doing, down to the same seat, good choice! My evo 8 is at a local custom fabrication shop getting the seat mounting custom done (as well as gutting and custom roll cage). My shop did not recommend the sparco sliders, mounts. Claimed they were dangerous for racing. Instead they make their own base as well as the side mounts. I was just fitted for my seat last week and it will be sitting really low... in fact the steering wheel felt as though it was sitting too high, perhaps it's time for a new steering wheel I plan to visit the shop tomorrow to take pics. I can share those with you to give you an idea.

As far as cost... they are charging me $250 to custom fabricate the base and another $100 for the side mounting plates. This is driver side only. Pricey but I trust them and they do quality work.

I am also using the sparco circuit pro seat... I find that the side head bolsters are a bit low for me? I'm 6 ft, 190 lbs and when I sit in the seat I feel my shoulders hugging the side bolsters a bit. I'm hoping it won't be a problem!

I'd love to share ideas as I'm also in progress of building my evo 8.

03 evo 8 - race car
04 GT3 - weekend/HPDE toy
07 tahoe LTZ - tow vehicle
07 audi A4 - daily beater

 

Bride FG rails are great. Steel construction, sliders, NO movement and the bolt up to the OEM mounting holes. They are also less than $200 IIRC. I got mine from Aspec and have been very happy with them. Only downside is weight, the entire mount/slider/sidemount assy weighs about 9.0 lbs.

In the end my Pro2000 was about 1.5" lower than the passenger seat, so it does lower the seat too.

 

Can you post a detailed list of your seat set up? brand of each component etc.

I see you youre running Bride FG rails ... what type of sliders? is everything Bride?

Im running the Sparco pro 2000's but its looking like I have to drill a hole in the SPARCO slider to make them fir to the rail...

 

I had mine fabbed by Sublime here in Omaha NE. Here's a link:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=179674

What's changed since I posted that is Mike now can fit sliders to the base, but not sure if there's any additional expense for that. I'm really happy with the bases he made for me and you can sit about 2" lower without sliders, and probably 1.5" with.

Edit: I just noticed that you are installing a cage. Why not have seat rails installed at the same time? Here's a pic of what I'm talking about:



You can get a kit from Custom Cages in the UK, or roll-your-own.

 

what about people who want to retain the stock seat level? i'm short... 5'7''ish

 

Please don't take offense, but your shop is full of ****. I (unfortunately) have been in a car that crashed with the Sparco seat bases and sliders and they didn't deform in the slightest. It's well made stuff.

That said, there's always room for improvement.


You're not the first person I've heard of complain about this. In fact, I bought my seats from someone who got them mail order and realized he didn't fit! He's 6' 3" so it was much worse.

I'm actually 5'10" and 210lbs, so I have a different problem with fitting into seats. ;-) The Circuit Pro is just about perfect. The elephant ears on the seat do push my shoulders in a bit, but it shouldn't make a big difference while racing as your arms are up and forward while driving anyway. Only thing I'm worried about is how it's going to feel on long transits between stages. :-(

 

I've thought about this, but it makes the seat set-up fairly permanent. In past race cars I have changed seat configurations multiple times, so using the stock mounting points gives you more flexibility to use off-the-shelf parts.

Your set-up is very nice, BTW. Makes for an extremely stable platform in case of roll-over.

 

You actually have MORE flexibility, as the side mounts on most race seats have multiple mounting levels to choose from. Most of us who are tall or have long torsos (I'm the latter) end up having to bolt the seat at it's lowest point and are still sitting slightly hgher than we want.

Here's a shot of the side mounts for race seats:



In general for racing, you want to bolt the seat as low and as far back as you can while driving comfortably. This will give you the optimal center of gravity. The dead weight behind the steering wheel is one of the heaviest parts of the car. ;-)

 

- Sparco Pro2000 Seat
- Bride FG Rails
- OEM hardware to mount to chassis
- High Grade Hex Head bolts to mount seat to rails, Bride supplies some Button head cap screws (uses allen wrench) but I'm not really a fan of them as they tend to strip easily.

The Bride rails are basemount (to car), sliders and side mounts all in one.

http://tees-usa.com/seatrail.html

The side mounts for the FG rail are height adjustable. That said a friend of mine runs these rails with Bride seats and he's pretty short, like less than 5' 7"!

 

I called around some shops, and was told that the height of the Sparco seat bases is the same as the RMR brackets. I also had a chance to talk to a friend who is using the same driver's side set-up that I want (base, sliders, side mounts) and has said that the Sparco set-up is at a good overall height.

So, I ordered the Sparco steel side mounts, sliders, and DS seat base. As I have the factory seats out of the car and will have these parts some time next week, I'll actually take height measurements of the stock seat (from two points -- front and rear of seat bottom pad) and of the Sparco set-up so that we'll have a point of comparison. If people with other bolt-in set-ups would be willing to post their measurements (and pics if possible) I'll pull it all together into a single table.

EDIT: Sparco brackets are made by one of two sources; Wedge Engineering (http://www.wedgeengineering.net/) or Speedware Motorsports (http://www.speedwaremotorsports.com/). It so happens that the bracket Sparco sells for the Evo is a Speedware bracket.

To see what all of my options are, I called Wedge and they also have a bracket for the Evo. It's less money ($80 vs $100 ea.) and claim that it bolts even closer to the floorpan. I plan to order one just to compare the two and see which one I prefer. I'll post what I find out.

 

kool thxjjjjjjjjjjjj

 

I have the side mounts and bases in stock and ready to ship... will give good package deals. PM with questions.

-Kyle