97 M3/4/5 running in STU

[Fair!]

Re: 97 M3/4/5 running in STU

I have RaceTech RT1000's in my car, with RaceTech side mounts, sparco slider (driver's side only), and custom floor mounts made out of angle iron.

How do you like the RaceTechs? We might start selling these.

And making proper seat brackets for Sparco sliders can gobble up several hours of fabrication time, if you are trying to get them as low as possible, and work with short + tall drivers, and fit the seat between the console and door. If you don't work at a race fab shop, like Chris or me, you need to budget for this...

Also, the sedans do not fit wide seats. At all. My racetechs hit the pillar in my seating position (I'm 6', skinny) and the seat is touching the carpet on the center console. Anything with wider shoulders is not going to fit easily. You can see in the picture that the seat is literally touching the B-pillar. It's rubbed through now after a season of driving.

Yes, touching the door panel is a reality with most race seats in an M3 coupe as well. And in general this is the case with most BMWs using race seats and interiors. Every time I close the door it touched the shoulder "wings" in the E30, E36, Z3 and E46 cars I have made brackets to put fixed back race seats in (Sparco, Cobra, UltraShield, etc).



Its the only way to squeeze them in these narrow cars, if you keep the center console. I always push them as far towards the center of the chassis as I can (too far and its starts crawling up the tunnel, raising the seat). The stock seat is not centered with the steering wheel, so this is usually a good thing.


Left: Modified stock brackets rarely work well. This was nearly 15 lbs but was replaced with a >10 lb custom bracket + Spacro dual locking slider



We should start a thread just about mounting race seats in BMWs. Its tricky.

[Chris]

Re: 97 M3/4/5 running in STU

How do you like the RaceTechs? We might start selling these.

Love them. They fit great for people of my build (skinny, somewhat broad shoulders.) I've sat in 4009s of various size and liked them as well. Especially since they have some 'tall' seats to actually get harnesses up to an appropriate height for people with a taller torso.

I've done 6+ hours in one sitting in these seats. Tolerable. With a little more padding under your butt they are fantastic. Ingress/Egress isn't as good as something like a Pro2000 but it holds my legs/hips better as a result.

And making proper seat brackets for Sparco sliders can gobble up several hours of fabrication time, if you are trying to get them as low as possible, and work with short + tall drivers, and fit the seat between the console and door. If you don't work at a race fab shop, like Chris or me, you need to budget for this...

Yep. Although, the brackets that we sell through the shop (the angle iron bits you see under my seat) make it very easy to mount the slider. Mounting aftermarket seats, in general, is about the last thing I ever want to have to do. It sucks.

We should start a thread just about mounting race seats in BMWs. Its tricky.