THSCC Forums

Frank I didn't realize that you were still growing and might get too tall for your Miata. You can't get a tow vehicle anyway, there is no more room in your drive.
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Fixed back racing seats and harnesses do not necessarily preclude you from driving the car on the street. I drove to and from Roebling in Corbeau Forzas this past weekend. I do have 5-pt harnesses, but I still use the 3-pt belts for street driving.

I will be the first one to tell you those seats aren't terribly comfortable for that long of a drive, but it can be done.

With that said, my Miata is not my daily driver, and I do enjoy the cushy seats in the old Volvo...

RE: the tow vehicle, trailer, and (joking) pending divorce - I feel your pain...if I added another vehicle to the fleet, my better half might start drawing up the papers

YMMV

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Tom you should stick a Ford 5.0L in the Volvo, beef up the rear springs and use it as a tow vehicle for the miata! __

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In need of car.

Actually ran into another reason for the race seat .... I'm not terribly comfortable with how well my shoulder harnesses stay on my shoulders. Fix options include buying new shoulder harnesses with a sternum strap (didn't even know these existed until last weekend), slotting another hole (or two) in the stock seat, or buying a race seat.
I guess I can always get a cushion to sit on for those long drives ...
Frank
Tom: Sounds like you're happy with the Corbeau Forzas?

(Warning, thread hi-jack in progress... )

Yes, I am quite happy with the Forzas. Bang for the buck, they're hard to beat. The list price you'll see everywhere for them is $220 per seat. Steve Pierce undercut that price by a healthy margin.

They do fit in the Miata, but not without some effort. Usually, the seat bottom is the problem area with race seats in a Miata, and the Forza fits with room to spare. The problem area is actually higher. The Forza has a wide section at the sholders, so when you close the doors, the seat actually makes contact with the top of the door panel. After a month or so, I actually have a small indentation in the padding on my panel. You have to make a concerted effort when closing the door, or it won't shut completely. It's annoying for a day or two, but you get used to it.

Chris Schimmell installed my bar, seats, and harnesses. He actually had some trouble with the sliders Corbeau sent. He modified them to work, but we later found out from Corbeau that they manufactured them incorrectly. The Driver's side slider was drilled for the passenger side, and the same for the passenger side. This offset the seats out so far that the doors would barely close at all. Chris modified the brackets, and it works pretty well now. I could have sent the brackets back to Corbeau for correctly drilled ones - they offered.

For spirited driving, they are great - the effort you're used to exerting to hold yourself in the seat is subtantially reduced - I'm sure the 5-pt's have something to do with it also, but I'm much less tired at the end of a 30 min session now.

The main reason I got fixed back FIA-approved seats is because of what happened to Rob Plank a few years ago when he wrecked his Miata at VIR. He was using stock seats, and the impact of the crash actually broke the seatback mechanism. Rob's head smacked his roll bar pretty hard. Obviously he's fine now, but I don't want to take that chance.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Thanks. Good feedback.
Sorry for getting you into hijack mode ....

Frank

I think that it is debatable!

Since I've just joined the forum and I see I've been referenced ,I'll chime in on this topic. Craig ,it would be very easy to add a harness bar to your Hard Core bar. I've done a few of this style of bar so far,and adding the harness bar would make it Solo 1 compliant .Adding the bar is an easy job if the bar is removed from the car. About an hour job. AS you know ,if you installed the bar ,they are a royal pain to take in and out.Adding the bar in the car might result in damage to your top or rear carpeting. But it might be done.
Lap belts are easy to mount by adding eyebolts where the stock belts are mounted and ordering clip-in lap belt hardware.
Please e-mail me ,<stikytarr@mindspring.com> for any other questions you might have.
Since this is my first experience on a forum,I have no idea what most of these options are,so I'll keep it simple.
Chris

Thanks Chris. Your right, the bar is a pain to put in, so I'm sure it would be equally hard to take out. I'll let you know what I decide to do. Thanks,

Craig