Hey guys! ChrisFix here and today,
I'm going to show you everything that you need to know, on how to pick out a proper racing seat for your car.
We'll be taking a trip to the local shop that sells racing seats
and I'm removing the passenger seat so we could test fit different racing seats to make sure the one I want fits.
Man, that is a mess, but check it out! 20 bucks! Not bad! Looks like today is going to be a good day.
Now, I'm looking for racing seats because these seats have no side support and they've seen better days.
Check this out, watch how much I moved in my stock seat. Since I started drifting,
I noticed how much I was getting flung back and forth because there's no side support in the stock seat
and I was fighting to stay planted so much that it was making it difficult for me to focus on learning how to drift.
So switching out these seats with racing seats is a priority to help me excel in drifting.
All right, we're on the road to Stable Energies, a motorsports shop that has a huge selection of racing seats.
I called them up
and they said I could take video at their store and even offered to help make sure that I cover the most
important questions people have when buying racing seats. Just so you know, you can't buy any racing seat, there are some very important aspects when
picking out the correct seat, which I'm going to cover, so after watching this video,
you'll be able to get your own racing seats and before you know it, we have arrived. This is pretty exciting,
I can't wait to check out all these racing seats.
Hey, how's it going guys? I'm Chris. I spoke with you on the phone. Call. Oh, hey
I'm Joe. Chris: Nice to meet you. So I'm looking for bucket seats for my Mustang, which I drift. Joe: Yes,
we have plenty of uh, selection over there for you to check out and [series] [link] Chris: Perfect, thank you very much.
Joe: Let us know if you got any questions.
All right, it is awesome to see all these seats here and to be able to sit in them, see 'em all next to each other and we're going
to go onto the other side, I want to show you these halo seats to start.
All these seats in this back row are called halo seats. They have this protection up top here where your head goes
and if we sit in the seat, the halo is right at head level and provides side-to-side protection,
but if you look sideways, you have a serious blind spot.
This is what it looks like when you look left
and when you look right
and that halo blocks a good amount of your side view.
So seats with the halo is a great choice for a dedicated track car,
but since I'll be driving mine on the street to get to the track, it's not good for me, so, instead,
we're going to come around this side
and we're going to be looking at regular bucket seats.
Next, we want to pick out what our seats are going to be made out of. So we have two different materials,
we have aluminum and composite base seats.
Aluminum's good because it's usually more inexpensive compared to the composite seats
and I'll include pricing in the
description for you to check out. These seats could also be pretty light at around 12 pounds and they fit
4-point, 5-point and 6-point harnesses.
The downside is, you're going to need a back brace to connect the seat directly to the cage because in an accident, these aluminum seats
can bend, They're also not FIA-certified. Now, composite seats are typically made of fiberglass,
but you could get more expensive seats made of carbon fiber or Kevlar and
composite seats in general are usually more expensive than aluminum seats.
They're also a little heavier,
but still way lighter than the factory seat. The good thing is, you only need to mount these seats to the floor, you don't need
a back brace and they fit 4-point, 5-point and 6-point harnesses and a lot of composite seats are FIA-certified
and that brings me to my next point:
What is an FIA certification? The FIA is an organization that regulates safety aspects of motorsports. They test the seats,
so you know when you buy one, it's safe
and it's important to note not every seat gets tested and is FIA-certified and it doesn't mean that
they're bad seats, it just means that you don't know if they meet a certain safety standard,
so if there is a holographic FIA sticker,
it's been approved and meets their safety standard and since seats are an important part to safety,
I personally want an FIA-rated seat
and you want to make sure to check the requirements for your particular motorsport because sometimes, FIA-rated seats are
required and finally, if you are getting an FIA-rated seat,
you want to check the date. Most racing seats are good for five years and in this case, it's not valid after 2021.
It's 2017 now, so this seat has four years left,
which makes sense because it's a display seat.
So when you buy your racing seats, you want to make sure they're good for five years and if not, you should get a discount
and now for the fun part. One of the main reasons I came to this store is because I could actually
physically sit in these seats and see how they feel. Now, it's not just a comfort thing,
it's also a safety thing, so let me show you why. First, you want to sit in all the different seats to get a feel
for what's comfortable. You want the seat to be tight,
but not too tight where it's
uncomfortable. For example, this Recaro on the left, it's just not comfortable to sit in for me and the Recaro on the right is comfortable,
but it's way too wide and there's too much side-to-side wiggle room and
finally, this OMP seat in the middle fits me pretty snug and is actually really comfortable, so I'm liking this a lot.
So once you find a seat that fits you now you need to find a seat that has the proper height [for] the harness
Pass-through that's very important for [safety] when you sit in the seat you want to make sure that the harness
Pass-through is at the height of your shoulder like [this] you want the harness to sit on your shoulder and not against the seat also
Remember if you're using a head and neck restraint [it's] going to add a little bit of height to your shoulder
So take that into account so with and without the head and neck restraint this harness
It's nicely on [my] shoulder and the seat fits me perfect one thing to keep in mind
Is that large [pass] [throughs] like this are nice because it gives you more room [to] work with?
[now] an example of a seat that I'm too tall for is this recaro my shoulders are [above] the harness pass throughs and the harness
Sits on my shoulder at an angle greater than 20 degrees. Which is not good because in an accident
There's going to be way too much downward force that could compress your spine, and that's not what you want with the other recaro
I'm too short and my shoulder sits below the Harness [pass-through]
The harness is pressed down against the pass-through and isn't tight against the top of my shoulder
So I'm not properly secured in the case of a rollover
so out of all the seats here the one that fits me the best is this one right here [the] WRC [ar]
But what if you can't get to a shop and actually sit in a seat [well] all these seat companies have different measurements that you
Can look up online [and] you can measure your own body from your butt to your shoulders and get your height you can see I
Measured myself, and I'm 610 millimeters and the harness hole for the seat is at 600 millimeters
Which is why I fit perfect same thing with your with my hip width is
390 millimeters, and this seat the width is 390 millimeters
So just in case you can't come in and sit in [the] seat yourself
You can measure yourself and get a good idea of what seat will fit you and I really like this seat because it fits me
Well, so do you think we'll be able to test fit this in my car? Yeah, you got your car here today
It's always a good idea to make sure it fits the car before you buy it so yeah
let's let's do that as
You guys know I already took out the passenger seat at home so I can make sure the seats
I want to get will fit and that's definitely a benefit of going to a shot because they can help you just like this
Moment of truth does it fit?
[alright] it fits
But man it is closed you would think with a mustang you have plenty of room back here
Yeah with the you know with the wide door cards on this car
It takes up a lot [of] room, but you're not touching and you got plenty of room on the inside there
It looks like it's going to fit
Just [fun] awesome, but what happens if you can't go to a store like this and fit the seat?
well
I'm going to show you a few key measurements that you [could] take at home with your stock seat to ensure that you can find
a seat that fit so the first and probably most
Important measurement is at the top of the seat near the shoulders because the side bolsters on racing seats are
Significantly wider than the side bolsters on a stock seat so get your tape measure and measure
From the Edge of the center console to the door card which on this car is about six hundred and Thirty
Millimeters and the next important measurement is going to be the width of the base of the seat
so you're going to measure from the edge of the center console all the [way] to the door card and that is five hundred and
Forty Millimeters
So those are the two main measurements that you want to take and then you could just compare it to all the different measurements that
the
Manufacturer [gives] you and that's how you measure your seats to make sure any racing seats you pick out will fit
[so] let's get the test seat out and head back into the store
so we started off narrowing down our choices by looking at composite bucket seats then we found a seat that is safely fit in and
To seat that fit in my car
[so] I'm pretty sure this is [the] seat
I want to get what do you think I think it fits the car falling you fit in it pretty well for sure?
I think it's a good choice and
Now you're going to need some mounting hardware. Let's come take a look at that
So one thing that's important to note is when you buy a seat
You're getting just to see it doesn't come with anything else, so we need mounting hardware to install the seat in the car
we're going to need a floor mount a pair of side mounts and our hardware kit with nuts Bolts and washers, so
First let's cover the floor bracket these brackets are specific to your make and model
So I'm going to have to get a mustang floor bracket then
We have side maps which bolt to the floor mount you can see the side mount and floor mount bracket have different holes in them
So you can mount up the seat where you feel comfortable in the car this seat here already has side mounts on it
So you can see how it's set up
They're bolted right into the side of the seat and then this flat piece sits on top of the floor bracket just [like] that
so this is your basic set up you have the floor mount connected to the side mount the side mount connected to the seat and
Everything is all held together with some fasteners. It's that simple one of the only choices
You'll have to make are the side mount materials. This is aluminum, and this is steel
I wish you guys could feel the difference in weight the aluminum is about half the weight, but there is same strength
They'll do the same job. So if you're worried about the weight of your car definitely go with the aluminum
It's only a few bucks extra
[that's] what I'm going to do and the last option you could get are the sliders which allows you to move the seat backwards and
Forwards the sliders get bolted to the top of the floor mount and then the seat with the side mount attached gets bolted on top
of the sliders like that now I won't be running sliders because they add a little bit over an inch to the
Overall height [of] the seat and I'll have a helmet on which puts my head pretty close to the roof already
[I'm] also going to be running a harness and your harness has to be at a certain angle so if your seat slides forwards and
Backwards the [Angles] going to change and might move out aspect but sliders are always an option especially if you're running stock seat belt [all]
[right] so after testing out all these different seats here is what I picked
I'm getting these [om]
Pwrs [Cdr] seats for each seat that you get you need one floor mount and a pair of side mounts
So that's just about do it Chris should be everything you need so let's go get these in your car. [oh]
Man, this is exciting
[finally] I got some racing seats. I cannot wait to get these installed in the car, and if you're curious
There's plenty of room in a two-door car to transport a pair of new racing Seats [alright]
And that is everything that you need to know on [how] to buy racing seats. [I] want to thank these guys at stable energies
Thank you very much. Joe and Carlos. I really appreciate it
You guys helped me so much with all the information helping me test fit everything putting the seat in the car
So I really appreciate it. Yeah. I can't wait to see what you think of them when they're in the car
I'll be sure to link their website in the description so you guys could check out all the seats they have and all the other
Racing equipment. They have so definitely check them out and hopefully the video was helpful
if it was remember to give it a thumbs up and also if you're not subscribed
Consider subscribing because we're going to be installing the racing seats soon stay tuned