damenh85

Hi everyone- As most know, the stock C5 Z06 seats are pretty lousy when it comes to performance driving. I track my car about once a month (MSR Houston and TWS hopefully soon), and finally decided to get a race seat for the drivers side. I went with a Corbeau FX1 Pro in black microsuede, mostly because of the low price- $349.

As far as mounts, I wanted to side mount the seat to get it nice and low, and I never have liked the Corbeau sliders for track use (I've only had experience with the single lock, but had trouble with it staying locked). On the other hand, I wasn't ready to pay $350++ for mounts that seemed pretty simple. So the following is my journey to get the FX1 Pro installed with some DIY mounts. This is definitely not pro-level work here, I just wanted to get it installed cheaply and sturdily. So I apologize in advance if it is not up to fit and finish standards of all those on here. Also, apologies if it is too long.

A couple shots of the stock seat about to be removed- this should look pretty familiar



The front of the sliders are covered by some plastic bits. The method to remove is grab the button-heads of the plastic fasteners and pull straight out. The covers then slide off to reveal the studs and nuts:


Undo the four nuts (2 front, 2 back), undo the plug, and the whole deal lifts right out. For those wondering, I weighed the stock assembly and it rang in at 40.8lbs. Here is a shot of the old seat next to the FX1:


You're left with four studs (recessed in squarish wells about 1cm deep) protruding through the floorboard:


I then tossed the seat in to get an idea of how and where it would fit in the car. I am 5'7", so if the seat looks close throughout these pictures- it is. Not only am I short, but I set it up a bit closer than normal-daily-driving position for the track. At this point I also rocked back and forth to figure out the amount of tilt I wanted in the seat once installed:


Okay, so for the mounts, I went with 1/4" aluminum angle to run fore-aft between the studs, then 1/4" aluminum plate to make the vertical adapters that bolt to the seat and then to the angle. This is about $50 of aluminum. I needed less than half of the plate, so really it is less than $40 needed for the material:


So the angle sits like this. The problem is that the studs are recessed in relation to the carpeted portion of the floor. This means that with holes drilled appropriately in the aluminum angle and the angle flat against the carpeted floor, the studs don't protrude high enough to be able to just put a washer and nut on as a fastener. I'm sorry I don't have a better picture to show what I'm talking about:


I considered a couple of solutions to this problem, but I took a trip to the local hardware store to see what was available. I found what are called "coupling nuts" (I knew them as "standoffs", but they seem to be the same thing) in 1" length, and some short M10 bolts that looked good. And they were <$2 each. When installed and torqued down, the coupling nut is long enough to leave threads for bolting down the angle. Here is a close-up of the stud in the floor, a coupling nut, and a flat washer:


With that issue worked out, it was on to drill/cut everything up. Here's a gratuitous picture of the setup in my apartment's garage. Nice to have an apartment with an attached 2 car!


Drilling holes in the angle. Harbor Freight drill press ftw:


Angle installed:


With those in, I put the seat in the car to make sure that it would fit between the angle. Fortunately, it did:


Next was to make the adapters that went from the seat to the angle. I measured out 3" width on the plate. No real reason other than it left room for 1" spacing for the angle-mounting holes, and some extra on the side. With no CAD or FEA at my disposal, this was a pretty rudimentary design


I tried a cutoff tool initially to cut the plate, but my small 2gal air compressor wasn't up to the task and it was going to take me all day to make a 6" cut. So I went old school and grabbed a $5 hack saw from Lowe's. Worked like a champ and I got a little arm workout as well I used a Rockwell jaw horse that I got as a Christmas gift to hold it. Essentially a very portable, sturdy vise with great holding strength. It is operated/tightened with a foot pedal, so you can position the object with 2 hands while tightening with the foot. It is really an awesome tool for the solo DIY-er!


Cleaned up the edges, rounded off the corners with a metal file:


One adapter drilled and test-fitted; I tossed it in the car to get a feel for how the height and adapter angles would work out before moving on to the next one. This whole project was measure 10 times, cut/drill once. I didn't want to have to buy more material:


All four adapters cut and fit on the seat:


I put the seat with the adapters in the car, and positioned it where I liked. I actually had help measuring at this point from my wife, so I could sit with hands on the wheel. She then marked on the angle how far forward I liked the seat. With those marks, I pulled everything out of the car, pulled the adapters off the seat, trimmed the corner off the front adapters for clearance, then drilled holes in the angle and the bottoms of the adapters to put it together:


Once that was all done, I bolted everything to the seat on the garage floor, hoping that the holes were close enough that everything would thread- fortunately they were:


Same breath-holding when I put it in the car- pleeeeeeeeease let the holes match up....phew. Fits.


At this point I was able to jump in the car to definitively test the seating position. It came out great- and the seat felt great! So I pulled everything out and fit the seat belt off the stock seat. It worked nicely on the rear mount, so I didn't have to drill another hole:


I re-installed in the car to test everything and took it for a drive. Wow! How awesome to not be flying all over the place during hard turns. I can't wait to get it out on the track in October. Back home, I pulled it all apart again to paint the aluminum satin black. I considered painting the bolts as well, but I've never had good luck with that- the paint just tears off when tightening everything. Here is a shot of everything in the "paint booth" (moving blanket in entryway):


Final shot of the finished brackets:


Installed on the seat. The whole assembly weighs 24.2 pounds. That's a savings of 16.6 lbs:


Final install!



I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I used $40 worth of aluminum and $15 worth of hardware. If for some reason I want to adjust the position, I can just pull it out and drill some new holes. So far I'm happy with the seating position and like I said, I'm really looking forward to trying it on the track!

thanks for looking.

damen

TriplBlk

Dude, Nice fix man.
That first pic,how far the seat was forward, I was like awww man Idk how this is gonna look, but damn, you hit the nail on the head!

Great work :thumbsup:

damenh85

Ya, there is no tilt angle at all on the first picture as it's just sitting on the floor. Definitely not a comfortable way to sit When installed there is a significant amount of rear tilt.

TriplBlk

Should I assume there's a 4-5 point harness with a cross-bar coming soon??

damenh85

Definitely, those are the next items to come

TriplBlk

Sweeeett, update with some pics of the setup! I went with G-force from jegs, couldnt be happier

kornfreak_401

VERY NICE WORKMANSHIP. I am very impressed! No u can sell those and make some $$!!

J

Rickman

Great work! Love your paint booth,

Rickman

dangerz

Looks awesome, but do you trust those standoffs to hold you incase of an accident?

I would be concerned about that.

damenh85

I certainly gave it some thought, but I welcome discussion around it.

What would concern you about it?

damen

WICKEDFRC

I would have screwed up the measurements and the cutting 10x over. I think this is awesome.....Great job!!!

A few questions...

Did you pick aluminum angles that were basically 2" longer than the measured length of the floor mounting studs from front to rear?

Then you worked your angles with 3" wide 1/4 aluminum, with 1" height taller than the seat mounting point as room for error?

Could you have used different length Coupling Nuts to get the tilt you wanted, such as 2" front, 1" rear?

Like another poster mentioned, are you comfortable with teh stability of this set up in case of sudden braking, or god forbid, hard impact? Will the seat sher right out out that aluminum bracketry?

I really like your work.

Vetteman Jack

Lots of work there, but man, the finished product looks great in your car.

doublec4

Love the seats, I really want to get a set myself.

However, not sure how I feel about those brackets you made. While it was resourceful and creative, I would be slightly concerned about the safety. If you grab the seat and shake it pretty hard, how firm does everything feel? Since the brackets are raised on those "stand offs," not much of the bracket is actually in contact with the floor. Essentially you're mounting onto a tiny surface area (like legs of a table). Also, I'm not sure what corbeau makes their brackets from, but I thought aluminum will shear fairly easily.

Just some food for thought. I try and do most things on a budget, but sometimes you have to bite the bullet and pay for safety. Let us know how it feels when you take it for a spin and your weight starts shifting. It would be interesting to hear.

robert miller

Very nice job and write up on the install....

liquidforce917

I would really like to see the pictures associated with this install as i am doing something similar in the next few days

jornahow

What happened to the pics?

liquidforce917

They were either moved or deleted from their original spot from when this thread was posted. It would be great if the OP could repost the photos

damenh85

Hi everyone, OP here-

I originally had these pictures hosted on facebook, but since I got off there, the pictures likewise disappeared. I will try to dig them up and fix the original post.

damen

damenh85

Pictures should be fixed now. I've been on track 10-15 times with this setup and it has performed flawlessly. The downside (or upside?) is that my taller friends can't fit for a test drive.

damen

liquidforce917

Thank you very much. I spent most of my day yesterday doing this. And will finish them up tmro