Early CAV Seats

[Pat]

Now that the A/C issue is on the mend, focus has turned again to the seats.
My last redo isn't the answer I was looking for. (As my brother says, "They are about as comfortable as a blind date with a transvestite" -not that there is anything wrong with that) But I digress...
The newer CAV seats as well as the Superformance ones don't fit pre-100 CAV Monos. I've had some foam put in the current seats but it still isn't a great answer. The things are heavy and adjustment is limited. Has anyone found anything innovative that works? A friend who is a custom car builder suggested aluminum high backed bomber type seats with "form fitting" foam padding (he may have been trying to tell me something) and GT40 style eyelet upholstery but I haven't had much luck finding one that fit.
Any suggestions (other than referring my brother to Match.com)?

 

[David Morton]

Veek,
It's not difficult to 'grow' your own seat(s) and if you don't want to do the mixing
your self , see if there are any race teams in your local area who could do it for you.
It means sitting in a plastic sack of expanding foam for a while but it can be accelerated by using already pre-cured sections in the mix. After the curing you could even have it incorporated in your regular seat and as a luxury covered in suede.
You could even have a glass fibre mould taken and then the final product finished with suede and 'gt40' rings incorporated to look the part.
If you lived here in the UK we could sort it in a couple of hours maximum.
ps - your brother needs a change of diet amongst other things.

 

[bob peckham]

Veek, Bill Hough had made some seats for Gary Cheney that were in a very early car , i bet he still has the moulds for them , let me know if you need more help with this.
regards Bob

 

[Ian Anderson]

I managed to buy a set of RCR seats (2nd hand from a builder that wanted a different colour) for the Dax (Space frame)

Easy to fit - 2 piece so you can mount them as you see fit

Only sat in it for an hour and a half at one time byt very supportive and comfortable

Ian

 

[Bill Musarra]

I don't know your dimensions of the cockpit but you might consider Racetech seats. I have them in mine because I didn't like the GT 40 seats. Every time I have ridden in one, I felt I had to hold on to something when they went into a curve of stopped short. Like I was going to slide around. I am 5-9 and about 160 so I fill out a seat O K. The RTSaker model is the one you should look at. It has the recliner style and fits into the GT 04 like a glove and matches the rear firewall as though it was made for it. Its weight is only 10#. The top of the seat fits beneath my roll cage.
Racetech Race Products

This page gives you every possible dimensions of the seat. So you will be able to see if they will fit your set up. The seat mounting hardware puts the seat at about 1/4-1/2" off the floor. They aren't cheap at $825 and come from New Zeland. There is a European and U S distributor. They have the 6 point harness cut outs. The negative is they don't look at all traditional, but on the track they will hold you nice and firm.

Bill

 

[Cliff Beer]

Veek, you're right, the early (pre-100) CAV seats aren't very comfortable, lacking padding and support in just about every area. They do look the part which is nice, but ultimately you've got to be able to stand sitting in them...

One thing I did which helped...quite a bit actually....was to insert some spacers (actually the PO did it, I just adjusted them) under the front mounts. This leans the seat back a fair bit and lessens the column load on the spine. It made the seats more comfortable for me....or, at least, tolerable for me...and gave me some more headroom. The top back of the seat clears the bump for the WP by about 3/8ths....under hard acceleration the seat back will almost touch the bump.

If you haven't leaned the seat back a bit already you might try that to see if it improves the comfort level (as it did for me).

 

[Pat Buckley]

How long were the spacers, Cliff?

I take it the mounting studs were also lengthened?

 

[Cliff Beer]

Hi Pat, it's been a while since I've had the seats out - I believe the "spacers" (a bunch of washers) on the front mounting points were maybe 3/4"....

The PO had probably an inch of washers in there but when you stomped on the loud pedal the seat would push back and press up against the WP pulley bump and actually rub on the WP pulley. Having the WP pulley periodically grind a hole through the bulkhead panel wasn't very functional.....

 

[Ian Clark]

This has been a PIAS since day one on the Series 100 cars. Now that our Gulf car is just about ready to hit the road & track again after being converted to RHD (that's a BIG job on this car) we had to address the seat issue.

A drop floor pan has been fitted and an adjustable heel bar incorporated into the revised pedal tray. The heel bar alone was a huge improvement.

Some experimenting with various wedges under the forward half of the lower seat bottom produced positive results. Lower thigh support was introduced, lower back pressure gone, and the spacers previously used to tilt up the seat removed which gives back legroom as the seat back doesn't hit the firewall before you're at the back of the tracks.

This looks like a producable part, most likely covered in black low pile carpet which will grip the velcro already on the seat cushion and shell. So it's a drop in part, no re-upolstering, no new seats, just a simple solution.

The parts being made along with several detail items we're taking care of in the final (re)assemmbly. Look for pics soon. Here's the heel bar, something you could fab up.

Cheers