stano

I'm kicking around the idea of getting a race seat and would like to hear what works good in an '07 Z. I'm headed down to SoCal to look at a Cobra seat at Subi in Huntington Beach. Could I get away with the stock seat belts for awhile??

I'm 6'1" over 200 lbs and would leave the seat in full time.

Thanks guys

longdaddy

you will hate the stock seat if you track the car.

the best thing to do would be to find a race shop with a good selection and sit in as many as possible

Wicked Weasel

Kirkey road race deluxe with hardbar rails. Easy enough to swap in and out if you want.

AU N EGL

if at all possible do not get a leather covered seat. A cloth / nomex cover is much more comfortable during very hot track events.

PA Z06

Sparco Evo 2 here on hardbar rails, love the set up. I never take it out.

klasik-69

The stock seats will beat you up. I bruised my left knee trying to force against the door to keep me from flopping out of the car on hard cornering.

I installed a Sparco EVO 2 seat on the driver's side. Used Pfadt's seat mount and a Sparco slider. Close on head clearance with that but it does work very well. Again, Hardbar for the harness bar. Also, make sure you get a quality harness, like Momo, and get them with the reduced 2" wide shoulder belts in case you add a HANS device later. The cheaper belts are very uncomfortable.

On passenger side, I made my own seat mount frame since my buddy who bought one from Pfadt had to hack it up since it doesn't take into account the OnStar module on the floor. I then bolted a Corbeau FX1 Pro seat directly to the mount for maxium head clearance. I had to space it up a bit to clear the OnStar module. That thing is almost 2" high.

If you find yourself changing seats back and forth (stock vs race), you may want to buy yourself an extra seat memory module from GM. If not, and you want to use the telescoping function on the steering wheel, you need to remove the seat module from the stock seat and reconnect it to the harness Pfadt sells, along with the airbag resistor plug. Also, if you do get an extra seat module (around $130 from Gene Culley), you will need to take the car to someone who has a tech II tool to program the new module. Its not a big deal and sure saves me a lot of time now. I can change driver's seat in about 15 minutes and I retain the telescoping function.

As some have said, once you sit in a race seat, you won't settle for stock seats on the track. However, contrary what PA Z06 does, I don't like it for street use, too hard for my aging body to crawl into or out of. Good luck.

stano

Thanks guys and keep it coming.

I've got about 15 track days under my newbie belt. My Z is a 1LZ so I don't have to worry about all the fancy stuff, no side airbags, no telescoping wheel. I've heard that Subi in SoCal has a variety of seats to sit in and Sparco is not too far from them. I was looking at the Evo+ for my big butt

I'm going to go with Gary's Hardbar set-up and probably his seat mounts depending on the seat I choose. I know what you mean about bracing yourself and saftey is in the front of my mind at this point. I'm doing about two events a month.

Any model # for the belts? I definately don't want to go cheap. Any problems with helmet clearance?

SSSUPRA

Sparco corsa here on Pfadt brackets with no sliders. Takes 5 minutes to swap out from stock to race.

tcmc5

For a harness you couldn't do better than a TeamTech from Hardbar. Great quality and comfort. I wrecked my car hard head-on into a cement wall with hardly a bruise. Was using Gary's harness bar, seat mounts and TeamTech Jet Pilot. Excellent stuff from a great guy.

LG Motorsports

This seat below is only $595 and comes with side rails for mounting. goto this link http://www.lgmotorsports.com/catalog...4a7639bc2f3be1

Also go to our front page and you can see our other seat that is good for daily driving with easy ingress and egress.

Both seats are good but the GT2 seat allows for easy entry.

GT2 link: http://www.lgmotorsports.com/catalog...oducts_id=2126


Both seats IN STOCK


Thanks
Lou G



$595 for this seat in fabric covered:

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and $1295 for this one (below) in leather covered dual purpose seat:


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Comes plain leather also

cgh1

Depends on the harness attachment solution you choose. If you use a Hardbar harness bar, there are attachment points for the stock belts on the bar (albeit the angle strangles them a bit) so you can have both. If you go with a roll bar, you'll likely need someone to fabricate some mounting points for you if you want to mount the stock belts to it.

It is generally recommended that you avoid using stock belts in a racing seat, especially on track. I have to admit that that I have done so but only on the street and I also disconnected my stock belts at the waist mounting and ran them through the belt holes in the seat. If you don't do this, then the belts are so far way from your body, you might as well not be wearing them. That part can be quite the challenge in a Corvette (I did this in my BMW, my C5 was harness on the track, stock belt on the street, trading all equipment for each use.

The others are right - don't skimp on quality of harness belts; doing so will quickly show itself in lack of comfort.

Hope this helps!

95jersey

You don't need a memory module unless you absolutely want the telescoping wheel to work. I just set the wheel to where I like it (leave the parking brake off), then disconnect the negative terminal on the battery and change the seat and it stays where you left it.

I bought a Sparco Sprint, with the Sparco base and slider. The slider is great and helps you get in and out of the car. If you going to leave it in all the time, get the slider.

I can swap seats in about 10 minutes easily. The problem with using a race seat on the street is how do you get the OEM set belt to work properly. The C6Z and new cars has a pre-tensioner built into the seat that your not going to be able to install on a race seat. The unit is all attached and has cables running all over the place that you will have to disconnect.

I tried looking for a regular C5 belt clip that I could bolt onto the race seat, but I can't find anyone willing to just sell the belt clip without the entire seat. Maybe I just need to go to the dealer and get one new. But for now changing out the seats is easy...AND you will disable the air bag system, and I personally wouldn't want to risk driving the car on the street without the airbag functional...just not worth the 10 minutes it takes to change the seat.

OCCOMSRAZOR

+ 1 for the Kirkey. Although, the new one from LGM looks pretty nice.

Whatever you choose, don't skimp on the seat!

ltborg

I like Kirkeys for the customizable sizing (Ultrashield also does this I believe). I've used a couple cars with the Cobra Suzuka S and I have found those seats to be good and comfortable as well. Hope that helps

SIK02SS

i have his business card in my wallet (in the car..), but the owner of Subi Sports is a great knowledgeable guy. He used to be the factory driver for the original WRX. He really knows his **** about seats too, i'm looking to get the Sebring Pro GT from him to replace my current seat, which leaves my shoulders bruised from sliding side to side

SIK02SS

oh, be prepared for him to sell you on the Cobra seats!

longdaddy

let me try to reinforce my point - you will have a lot of (great) suggestions here, but ultimately you need to pick a seat that works for you - your size, weight, shape of your body, your budget, how much you are willing to modify the car to make things fit etc etc etc. You said you want to have a seat you will use on the street - that means anything with tubular frame is out and deep bucket race seats are probably out too. It is hard to easily tell if the seat you are trying for 10 minutes will work well on a 3 hour long roadtrip, so be prepared to look around and try things out a lot. I would encourage you to make the price as small of a factor in your decision as possible - seat is a not only something that will determine the "feel" of the car it is also a major safety component.

I wish I had done better research when I bough mine - I ended up with an awesome track seat (Recaro HANS) but it does NOT work well on the street. 2 day long trip down the west coast was NOT comfortable.

95jersey

I measured my hip and shoulder width and then compared those to the measurements on the manufacturer website. There are no stores close to me that offer these kind of products and even if there were, they would probably charge twice as much as you can buy online.

Lan.Jet

I went to several places to try seats and at the track and even then I purchased three different seats until I found the right one for me. I went with a MOMO but it doesn’t fit very well in a corvette I had to make some modifications. 17” is about the widest seat you can mount.

AlwaysInBoost

I'd suggest going with caravaggio's. I was on the fence about to purchase a kirkey 16" deluxe RR seat until I sat in the caragaggios and was sold.

Not only do they bolt up to the stock rails/sliders, and allow you to retain all your power functions just like stock, but they also allow you to retain the factory 3 point harnesses. That for me was a BIG plus since I enjoy driving my z06 on the street as much as on the track.