Pretty sure I figured the race seat setup. Only took like 2 yrs. Probably still room for improvement, but a step forward for sure.
Mod at your own risk, I'm not a safety engineer, consult a professional, and so on.
But some of this might keep you off of suicide watch if you decide to go it alone, or at least help you screen the components you want to try to work with.
Setup involves:
VAC floor mounts
VAC anti-sub bracket
VAC seat belt adapter
Brey Krause direct to floor seat mounts
G-Force 6 pt
Profi XL
Key items this combination solves vs alternatives:
- Lap belt clip ins are integrated into the BK mounts, thank you baby Jesus.
Bolting the usual lap belt mounting brackets on the underside of the floor mounts creates unevenness against the floor. At least if you're keeping your carpets in place, and maybe even if not, the floor mounts are "arched" when torqued down. Unavoidable, as far as I can tell.
The arch is substantial enough that when I originally tried to install a slider, the bolt holes wouldn't align. And even if they did align, I would have had to torque the slider rails so that they bent to follow the arch of the floor mounts, which wouldn't have worked. Installing a few washers under the mounts (elevating them) permitted me to bolt in the slider, and freed up a little bit of slider movement, but not much.
The low key BK lap belt clip in also permits
the seat being mounted as far as possible inward/toward the tunnel, which is how you're going to get square to the wheel. You need to be working with the set of floor mount bolt holes furthest inward/toward the tunnel. If you're not all the way over toward the tunnel, you'll be notably off center (left). With the previous setup, I was off enough that I'd feel the seat edge digging into the back of my right shoulder when turning right, for example.
With the mounting brackets installed on the underside of the floor mounts and protruding outward, they also run into the floor of the car as it angles up on both sides. The brackets limit how close you can get to the tunnel, and require some bending to follow the car floor.
So, anyways, the lap belt clip ins integrated into the side mounts seems like a little thing, but it's a godsend. They should all be like this…
- Stacking the VAC floor mounts and BK seat mounts creates enough elevation for me (6'2").
The BK direct to floor seat mount slots -- at least the set I got -- didn't align with both the front and back floor bolt holes, but this setup would have been too low anyways. You'd probably have to be 6'5" - 6'6" for the direct to floor to work in the F8X.
The numerous VAC floor mount bolt holes and BK mount slots allow for a few different positions where there's alignment. The nearly perfect position for me allowed enough room for the VAC anti-sub to be bolted in at the back of the floor mounts.
The compromises of this setup:
- No seat movement.
- The 3 pt situation is a true safety compromise. I didn't transfer the stock system over, but the BK mounts are designed to integrate the stock buckle. However, if you get the seat into the proper position, as close as possible to the tunnel, I'm not sure you'd be able to snake it up anyways. The 6 pt is the priority for me.
I'm not going to get into all of the details of my trials and errors, parts returns, exchanges, and throwaways, and not intending to sound rude, but seat component vendors need to do more hands-on development work with the F8X.
imo the ideal 6 pt component solution would involve:
- A base that centers the seat (tight to tunnel) with anti-sub bracket integrated.
- Slider (optional).
- Side mounts with substantial forward/backward and vertical adjustment range, lap belt clip in integration, and 3 pt buckle mounting point. (BK address 3/4 of these needs, but not enough vertical position options for F8X.)
- Passable 3 pt solution. I don't know, but even the old style floppy 3 pt buckle that could be snaked through the seat opening would seemingly be better than what I have.