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. Here is a close-up of the stud in the floor, a coupling nut, and a flat washer:


When installed and torqued down, the coupling nut is long enough to leave threads for bolting down the angle:


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:


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

CHJ In Virginia

Good looking install. What type of harness are you going to use and how do you plan on mounting it ? Are you going to add additional brackets for the harness attachment points ?

damenh85

I will probably mount a 6-pt. harness, but before I can do that I need a harness bar. It's definitely not a problem to drill more holes, or make additional pieces to do what I need.

GettReal

Great Job and great write up.. You are fortunate to be able to have your seat so far forward. I have the exact same seats and you would not believe what I had to do to get my seats in.. I need to have mine so far back that my seats basically sit on top of the floor bolts..

Pretty gratifying DIY job and always nice to save some money

argonaut

I have the same seats and use the Corbeau slider mount. Its never come un-latched for me but it does put the seats to high. My solution....remove the seat bottom cushions when on the track. Drops you down a couple inches and gives you a little more "feel" and a snugger fit.

I have no idea how good those "coupler" nuts are but just to let anyone else know, who is doing their own mounts, as an alternative - Gary at Hardbar sells "stud extenders" that basically make the mounting studs longer. They are very high quality and a perfect fit.

TS Motorsport

Good job, but I hope you used locking nuts. I would try to weld those side mounts though for added safety. The forces that are exerted onto a seat during braking and cornering might loosen or tilt that seat from the nuts just a tad.

damenh85

Blue loc-tite used on everything. If I have a problem, I do have nylocks that I can use. I don't want to weld the side pieces to the angle in case I want to move the seat forward or backward at some point. I agree that there are heavy forces on everything, so I will be checking how everything is holding up/wearing quite frequently.

damenh85

Hardbar's stud extenders look great and certainly would be a nice solution here, but they are around $25.00/each. With 4 being required for this application, I opted to try the $1.95/each coupling nuts.

waddisme

I used the slider for my drivers side and I fit OK, but for my passengers side, I had to get creative like you. BeerKat make me some rails out of steel bar and then I crafted my own brackets so it would sit as low as possible. I had some sub/lap belt mounts, but the studs were too short and the Hardbar exteners were just too expensive. I have a bar that mounts to the rails that I have the sub/lap belts attached to. I would prefer to attach them to the studs as this would seem to increase the holding force in a collision. Going to check out the couplers. Great write up.