jayh

Looking for feedback, my car has a Autopower bolt-in roll cage. I tried installing racing seats, but it seams I can not align the seat so my helmet does not hit the overhead longitude roll bar. I am using side mounts with no sliders. Got it as low as it can go and move it forward and back nothing works. I thought of just padding the bar but I don't know if I could take a 20 minutes session with my head banging against he bar. Do enough of that in work.


Am I missing something I can't believe the cage was designed this way. I'm only 5'10" so that should can't be an issue.

JakeKaminskisRacing

If you were to cut out the factory seat mounts, do you think mounting the seat on the floor with custom seat mounts would work? That or a set of different side mounts?

Shoot some pictures of your setup and share it with us so we can see what we have to work with.

jayh

I will take some photos tonight but I have the Planted base and side rails.

JakeKaminskisRacing

I'm stating if you got rid of the seat mounts and the metal that they bolt to. Then reinforce the floor and bolt the seat directly to the floor pan.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

It's more the seat brackets that are the problem...

Make some custom brackets and you should be able to get it to work easily

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

Sorry to ask the obvious, did you contact the manufacturer for their input?

They have quite a few diffrent offerings. It's not clear which one you have

jayh

Yes I did contact the manufacturer and I was informed that the bars were fabricated that way due to the narrow roof. He could only suggest lowering the seat as low as possible. Jake and dannobre are correct I will have to scrap the Planted base and side mounts and fab something custom.
I just need to figure how to deal with the cross member. Also I will have to relocate battery again.
I've attached photos.
Anybody looking for a set of planted brackets

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

If you make custom bracket that allows the rear bucket part of the set to sit a lot lower that will fix the problem. The problem with the Planted bracket and the others I have seen for the RX-8 are the rear part of the seat sits level with the top of the crossmember

JakeKaminskisRacing

Having the battery located behind the driver really isn't a great place for it when considering weight distribution anyway. A better place would be on the passenger side in front of the rear bench. Or behind the rear passenger seat in the trunk.

jayh

Thanks, I will try the slope technique. It's better than cutting the body stiffener. I did see one thread where they cut it out. Not sure if I'm comfortable with that. The rx8 looks to be a unibody center section with tube frame front and rear. Not a simple engineering exercise to figure how compensate for the removal.


Actually the photo was taken from the passenger side but i may still may have to move the battery to the trunk when I slope the seat back.