- The next steps in the life of our little rally car project
are some safety related items.
We're gonna do seats and harnesses, and a roll cage.
So on the topic of the roll cage,
I wanna make my own roll cage.
Of course, I wanna do a DIY style,
but I've never made a roll cage and I'd really like
to get it right on the first try.
So I figured this would be a great excuse to ask my mom,
if I could have a friend over, she totally can't say no.
Mom, can Mike come over?
She said, yes. I'm Zach that's Mike.
This is Money Pit. Let's do some safety stuff.
(thunder rumbling)
(lasers firing)
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Now let's get back to Money Pit, baby.
Boosh.
(soft string music)
Now, I Know what you guys are all thinking.
You thought you clicked on a video about seats
and I just keep talking about roll cages. What gives?
Let me clear it up.
So I am ready to put a roll cage in this thing,
but before you go put in a roll cage in a car,
there's some stuff that you wanna have sorted out.
Like where are you gonna sit, your seating position,
your seat, your steering wheel,
all that stuff should be sorted out
before you put a roll cage in
because once you weld a roll cage in place,
it's not gonna move too easily.
So before we go any further,
let me introduce you to my friend, Mike.
I used to work with him at ECS Tuning in Ohio,
he's a wizard at welding and he's terrific with tubing.
He's built a bunch of roll cages,
he's great at fabrication and he's just the guy
to come help me out with this project.
Not necessarily installing seats,
but I kinda duped him.
So that's what we're gonna do today.
We're gonna strip the interior.
We're gonna get these old seats out and replace them
with a cool set of seats and harnesses.
And we're also gonna install a sick new steering wheel
so that I can really dial in my whole driving position
before doing a cage.
So let's take a look at some of the crap
he's gonna help me out with.
Let's take a Gander of the goods, baby.
First off for seats, I got a set of Sparco's Evo seats,
and they weren't exactly cheap.
I paid about 1,750 bucks for the pair.
And then for the task of holding these seats to the car,
It has Sparco's aluminum brackets, these are nice and beefy.
And then I got a pair of these.
These are the mounts that were mounted
to the actual chassis. So these are built for an E36.
They should use these stock mounting points.
And then the brackets, those Sparco brackets,
they'll mount to this.
Then down here,
I don't know if you guys are gonna be able to see these,
but I got some harnesses. These are made by Sparco as well.
And that's right, they're a desert digital cammo,
perfect for ripping around in the desert.
These are a five point harness,
which means that we're gonna have to modify
the car a little bit to install them.
Then we've got our steering wheel set up.
We've got our quick disconnect here.
It's really sick, I can't wait to put it on.
I've always regretted that the Miata doesn't have
a quick disconnect. So boom, baby.
And then to connect the quick disconnect to the car,
we of course have a hub. Then one of my favorite things,
we've got a steering wheel also from Sparco.
I really like all these products a lot,
even though they're not the cheapest, they are really nice.
So I can't wait to get this stuff in.
It's gonna change the personality of the car in a big way,
especially 'cause we're gonna be getting rid of most
of the beige things that are in there.
So let's strip some interior and get these seats
in my driving position in general, I'll figure it out.
(upbeat music)
Don't break anything. It's all going up for sale on eBay.
(upbeat music)
Taking stuff out is finding what's holding it in
and removing it, sometimes breaking it,
but ideally not ever breaking it.
I mean, when you are taking stuff like this apart,
it is a good idea to be organized with your hardware,
especially if you ever care about putting stuff back in.
There's a Ziploc bags for me, baby.
Always good disconnect your battery
before you started playing with these bombs.
Speaking which, big step to get the steering wheel off
and then we're start to get the carpet out.
- [Eddie] Wait, what are we gonna do with that?
- Well, so I do remember where you live
and I remember which room is yours.
So I was thinking maybe I would modify your pillow
a little bit.
- [Eddie] Old neck cracky racky?
(laughs)
- Yeah. I'm gonna be a chiropractor, Eddie
you're my first, Ouch! (beep)
Well, we're at a crossroads, bit of an impasse.
We gotta take out all this stuff to get the carpet out
in one piece or turn the carpet into more than one piece.
You know what I'm gonna do?
(slow upbeat music)
All right. Now, let's pull this carpet out.
Oh yeah. I'm gonna lose weight for this.
(slow upbeat music)
This car just got a lot louder, but that's okay.
It's a race car. All the noises.
Wow! Look at my nice red interior.
It is a BMW. So we've got the majority of the interior out
of the car. And I guess you might be wondering why
we would even do all this.
Why we would remove all these perfectly good
and comfortable seats to replace them
with less comfortable stuff.
And the fact is, I mean,
the thing's supposed to be a performance driving car
and when you're performance driving,
comfort really isn't what you're after,
you're after being held in place.
And in my opinion, doing a nice set of seats and you know,
(beep) pit mods really improve the driving experience
when you're trying to drive hard.
And I said, a seats will hold you in place,
keep it from sliding around.
They let you use five point harnesses like we're gonna do
for extra safety. And these seats didn't even really work.
Didn't work. They didn't reclined either.
They used to at one point in their life probably reclined,
but they didn't do that anymore anyway.
So it's just a lateral move with a little less comfort
and a little more safety.
Now, let's put some seats in.
All right. So I'm just throwing the side brackets
on the seat right now and I don't really know
where I want them to end up ultimately.
So I'm just putting them on
and then we'll put them in the car,
and see if we like it and adjust it, if we don't.
Probably gonna be a lot of adjustment
in my future, I don't expect to get this right the first try
and I wanna get it exactly right.
I wanna get in the car and be like, yeah,
that's where I'm supposed to sit.
All right. Well, our bracket looks to line up
with the holes and the posts
for the original seat mounting locations.
That's great. Sometimes aren't great.
Now we just gotta hope that the mounting holes
for the seat brackets also line up,
but I have a feeling they're not gonna.
Okay. Something in this ballpark.
Okay. This is the area that I wanted to see, I think.
Now I'm gonna put the steering wheel on
so I can tell where that's gonna be
and then we'll readjust the seat.
First thing I'm gonna do is pop this hub
onto the stock's spline.
(wrench screeching)
Then we'll connect the quick disconnect and then the wheel.
(wrench screeching)
- No way.
- [Eddie] Bro, you don't even tighten that.
- I know. I guess that's what you get
when you get the harbor freight, ball and allen keys.
It just broke my head off at like
one newton meter of torque.
The made in mounting.
Oh yeah. I like that.
- [Mike] Can you go lower?
- Can I go lower the seat?
I mean, I think so over your head right now.
- [Mike] Probably make believe that the tube
over your head right now?
- Yeah. - (indistinct)
- Oh boy.
- When you put in a cage and a seat in a car,
it's really important to try to consider where
the tubing is gonna be.
You don't wanna be bumping your head off that,
it's just not safe.
So you're gonna have to seat low enough
and try to keep all the roll cage tubing
as far away from you as possible.
- Well, you heard him, baby.
We gotta mind my noggin.
I guess that's why I brought Mike along.
The only problem is that the steering wheel is a touch high
and yeah, as my seat goes lower,
it's only gonna get higher relative to me.
Okay. Well let's pop this thing out of here
and see how much lower we can go.
(upbeat music)
- You will need MC bracket for your brackets touch.
- The what? Where, how?
- Right here, the whole front of the seat
before your brackets can touch each other.
- So we can't go lower.
- The back in it sits in front of them.
So it's a little reclined, I'll give you a little more
So yeah. I guess we're gonna be tilting.
Sometimes you don't get to do exactly what you want
'cause you're a little limited by the parts
you're working with.
And these are a lot of parts that got to stack together.
It looks like we got to tilt.
- Gangster. Lean me, baby gangster lean man.
All right. Well, this looks like pretty much
my final seating position. I've got some headroom,
the seat fits my distance to the pedals is great.
And I like the distance to the steering wheel.
So let's ship it. Bolt these puppies up.
The holes on our brackets
and our seat mounts don't line up.
So we're gonna have to do a little hole making.
That's okay. Mike's really good at making holes.
We've got all our holes marked out what we need to drill,
we need to drill a hole there,
a hole there and two in these seat rails,
then they'll go together.
Perfect little marriage, just like us.
(slow upbeat music)
(driller screeching)
Seat mounts and brackets put together sort of.
Our new holes worked, it's jamming on the seat.
(metals clanging)
(tool wrench screeching)
Yeah, baby.
That's for, when you are doing like long races
and you had a pee and poop,
it's where you eject it.
Well, that's a seat attached to a thing
and look, we're almost kinda off the weld there.
(metal sheet clanging)
Looks about right.
(chuckles)
That's about it. I am pleased.
All right. So we got a lot of interior out of this thing,
we got two fancy new seats in it
and a Sig new steering wheel setup.
So we're pretty much ready to take the seats back out
and get started on cage stuff.
But I figured it was only right
that we at least drive around the block
and feel these new seats out.
I got a sick new set of pedals, they're aluminum.
They're made by hard motor sport and I'm gonna put them in.
Pretty cool pedal. It's got a little, thingy,
so your foot can't slip off to the right.
That's pretty cool.
Let's see how difficult it is to install. It looks pretty.
(metals clanging)
Oh yeah. It looks cool, feels cool.
Oh, baby! I think it's time for a test drive.
(sirens alarming)
(heavy metal music)
I am considerably lower.
I like these seats and it's a good size.
At least for my buns.
- Yeah. We really got a good tip.
- Yeah. It's a nice hug.
I'm not going anywhere.
I'm gonna be able to throw this thing around
and not end up over there.
And you know, all this stuff actually,
makes me feel pretty cool.
These seats are awesome.
This wheel, I'll be a crooked, looks pretty cool.
Even crooked.
(car engine revving)
(chuckles)
This thing is a full blown race car.
Yeah. This thing's coming together and quick.
That's the other thing too.
I mean the interior has turned a little bit red
in a cool way, but it's also just gone
from normal to way cool in one day.
- Significantly more interesting.
- I know, a hundred percent.
I feel way cooler sitting in this thing
than I did just this morning.
The only thing that you may or may not have noticed
to be missing, you've might have thought
you just couldn't see them because of their cammo,
but we don't have any seat belts at the moment.
And that's not really what you want,
but to mount those seat belts, we need a bit of a roll cage.
So I reckon it's time to head back to the shop.
Probably straighten out this steering wheel
and get started on the roll cage.
- Let's do it.
- What do you think? How much work we got ahead of us?
- A bunch.
- Hell yeah.
All right. Well, let's get our illegal selves back
to the shop.
Don't drive without seatbelts kids.
- No, they're gonna do it.
- Safety first.