Kirkey seats & installation

[joncowen]

I am considering a Kirkey seat for the lemons car my team is building. Its a 98 Escort ZX2 Rust bucket.

My question is regarding the installation. The instructions say to bolt in 4 places to the seat bottom, and 2 places at the top, by the shoulder belt holes.

I have been doing some internet searches, and it seems that most people are using simple side mounting plates, similar to a fiberglass racing bucket, and no top bolts. Doing that would allow use of a slider. We have a 6'-3" (i think) driver, plus (3) 5'-10" drivers, so we are thinking we will probably need sliders.

So, the question is, how important are the bolts at the seat back? Has anyone had luck without those bolts?

I suppose we could rig up a bolted back brace that has a pin lock to change the seating position.

Another question - how do you avoid bolts heads from sticking out into the seating area and causing pain?

Thanks,
Jon

[WillM]

Jon,

The seatback brace is very important in an aluminum seat. Some even use them on a composite seat.

You will not pass tech anywhere without a rigid seatback brace. That definitely goes for LeMons. They are NOT kidding about the safety requirements. I've seen teams have to weld & modify roll cages at the track to pass tech.

Aluminum seats are very flexible. They may not seem so when they are not bolted down, the difference in stiffness between a rear-braced and and non-rear-braced aluminum seat is huge.

My aluminum seat is on sliders but I have a seatback brace. Moving the seat is not something I'd want to do in a pit stop - it would take too long and it isn't the kind of thing I'd want to rush.

I've been on teams with very tall drivers and short drivers. I'd suggest you find a comfortable seating position for the tallest driver and then use foam inserts for the rest. Hey - that is what the pro's do.

Concerning the hardware through the seat - bolts pass through from the inside of the seat, washers & nuts (and remaining bolt length) poke out the sides or bottom. The removable cushion should be more than adequate to deal with any discomfort that could come from the bolt heads.

Best of luck. Are you going to NJMP or NHMS?

[joncowen]

Thanks Will!

I should be ordering the seat today. I'll make preparations for an attached seat back brace, as you suggest.

We'll be at the NHMS race, if we can get the car completed on time. Hoping to bring the car to the COM test day for it's first on track time.

[962porsche]

my self along with rick moroso , mark lydell ,thor schroeder and others are also building a lemons / chump car a gen two MR-2 .
or i should say i'm the only one building it !!!! the rest of the guys just hang out for moral support .
any way yes you need a seat back brace for the aluminum seats . because of the hight deferents of the 5 drivers i just built my own quick ajust seat back support . the total cost of the materials were $1.50 . if you PM me your email i will send you the plans on how i did it . so it will slide with out binding you have to put it at the same angle as the seat sliders . took about 40 minutes to build and i just welded it to the cross bar on the cage .

[joncowen]

I got the seat mounted this weekend. Used steel side plates bolted to the sides of the kirkey. We had our tall driver out this weekend, and we were able to come up with a driving position that works for everyone. Now that the base is bolted in, i'll fab and weld in the harness bar, then create a drop for a bolted back brace. The only thing i'm worried about is the bolt heads sticking into the driver's back. How do you prevent that?

[962porsche]

on all the seat i do i just use grade 10.9 button head bolts . i order my hardwere from bel-metric . there a great father and son business in mass. because i'm in CT if i put an order in by 12 noon i get it the next day shipped UPS .
because aluminum is a soft metal i also use very large fender washers as so the seat can't or should not rip off the mounting points as ez .

[joncowen]

Button head bolts should work. Thanks for the advice. What size do you think? M8?

[962porsche]

i use 8's for the seat bottom and 10's for the seat back .