Seat mounts: adjustable or fixed?

Time to put seats in the Mazda3 and I've run into a dilemma. I've always hard-mounted my seats, since i'm generally the only one who drives the car, but now's my chance to put seat rails on the driver's seat, just in case.

The driver's seat was last used in my 24 Hours of LeMons CRX, so it has Honda seat rails under it already.

Any wisdom on the safety implications of using sliders to mount a seat?

-Dave

They have to be 'double locking' to pass tech. I ran into that after having a single locking mount and had to get new ones. Also, bottom mounted seats are no longer legal, have to be side mount, FIA style. Again, I learned this after buying bottom mounts. hehe

Sliders are by nature:
Less safe.
Really convenient when you want let other drive yer ride.
Apt to feel loosey goosey when the tech guys checks seats for snugness.
Expect sh*t at tech.

I had sliderz (whatever Corbeau supplied) in my old Sentra rally car. They started to come apart (about 10 rallys) and I migged them solid to keep the tech guys away.

Bolting/unbolting/moving solid side mounts is a huge PITA, but worth it, to me.

---

Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

gilbrock Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They have to be 'double locking' to pass tech. I
> ran into that after having a single locking mount
> and had to get new ones. Also, bottom mounted
> seats are no longer legal, have to be side mount,
> FIA style. Again, I learned this after buying
> bottom mounts. hehe

My seats are side mounted, and the bottom of the side mounts are bolted to double-locking Honda rails. By some unbelievable stroke of luck, Cobra seat mounts happened to bolt directly to Honda rails with no fabrication and bolted right into the car. Using 1984 CRX rails in my 2006 Mazda3 somehow feels less than brilliant, though...

-Dave

my double locking corbeau slider sucks, and I've never even rallied it. POS

---

Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

Sparco sprints are bottom mount and I am pretty sure they are still legal...FIA and all

---

-Tom
DemonRallyTeam | Fine Tuning | CTS Turbo & RP Turbos | RalleyTuned | JRM | Meister Autowerks
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It's not that bottom mount seats are illegal per se, Eli. It's that the FIA went through and retested a bunch of seats several years ago, and pulled the certification on a lot - the majority of which happened to be bottom mounts. IIRC, the seats you got happened to be in that list of ones which had been invalidated.

I dunno what spawned it - maybe there was some crash involving bottom-mounted seats. Maybe it was just a change in their test criteria. Dunno.

Since then, some manufacturers have brought out revised versions of seats that are legal, some of which are bottom mount, some of which are side mount.

---

Self-righteous douche canoe

Bottom mount seats are legal and FIA approved, there were a few that lost certification as Michel said. Corbeau was one of the problem seats.

Personally I mount mine on the stock factory sliders. Sliders should be double locks, one on each rail. The Japanese seat sliders seem to stay pretty tight over the years and are pretty easy to adapt most times. I had a helluva time getting the Audi sliders modified to work last year, and they were a shade loose due to the nylon bushings that fit the mounts on the floor...pesky German engineering.

Anders had a cool solution on his Subaru that I thought worked well for rally. He has a set of sliders under the drivers seat and when it comes time to rally he has a hole that goes through both parts of the slider when it is in his preferred position he can put a grade 8 bolt in there and now has solid mounted seat.

Most side mount brackets have multiple holes for fore/aft and up and down. It takes about 20 minutes to adjust this on the Saab. Seems like a reasonable amount of time compared to the safety aspect of sliders. Not to mention the fact that sliders will typically move move you up about an inch....

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Per

Where the hell did I read that all FIA seats have to be side mount then?

Ah, who knows, I drink a lot.

My bad

gilbrock Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Where the hell did I read that all FIA seats have
> to be side mount then?
>
> Ah, who knows, I drink a lot.
>
> My bad

I'm tellin ya , those grocery store tabloids make stuff up. Elvis really didn't get Brittany pregnant...

heymagic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> gilbrock Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Where the hell did I read that all FIA seats
> have
> > to be side mount then?
> >
> > Ah, who knows, I drink a lot.
> >
> > My bad
>
> I'm tellin ya , those grocery store tabloids make
> stuff up. Elvis really didn't get Brittany
> pregnant...
>

But Dubya is having daily threesomes with Dick and Condi.
Think I read that somewhere.
>

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

john vanlandingham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> heymagic Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > gilbrock Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Where the hell did I read that all FIA
> seats
> > have
> > > to be side mount then?
> > >
> > > Ah, who knows, I drink a lot.
> > >
> > > My bad
> >
> > I'm tellin ya , those grocery store tabloids
> make
> > stuff up. Elvis really didn't get Brittany
> > pregnant...
> >
>
> But Dubya is having daily threesomes with Dick and
> Condi.
> Think I read that somewhere.
> >
>
>
>
>
> John Vanlandingham
> Sleezattle, WA, USA
>
> Vive le Prole-le-ralliat
>
> www.jvab.f4.ca

OK, sometimes they tell the truth.