Racing seats in your e36

[E36GUY]

Anyone got them fitted? Is your driver's seat adjustable? If so, did you have a problem with seat height and how did/did you overcome it?

Info greatfully received!

[dan101smith]

Got a pair in mine.

They're side mount seats, so there's some height adjustability, but they're pretty fixed in terms of movement fore/aft.

I had custom frames made up for mine, however you can get Sparco (and other) adjustable subframes to retain the runners.

[E36GUY]

Thanks Dan.

If I read that correctly, are you suggesting retaining the BMW OEM runners with a subframe to mount the seat on? I'm going to sell the vader interior but can easily source some runners from a scrappy.

[dan101smith]

Not quite what I meant.

You can get Sparco E36 runners that will fit the E36 mounting points and will then fit any basemount Sparco (and others) seat.

Or, you can get a frame made up and use side mounts to fix to that.

I don't think you can use BMW runners with aftermarket buckets.

[bigfatnick]

one thing to be cautious of, if buying aftermarket mounts is that they have a habit of shifting the seat to the right, you really need to have the seat pressed up against the trans tunnel. custom subframes might be a good idea, and if your tall like me, a lot of aftermarket sliding subframes dont really reduce the seat height, some even raise it (the only reason i wanted buckets was so i could fit in the damn thing with my helmet on).

[dan101smith]

Good point.

On mine (side mounts) I've got the mounts turned round so that the seat is closer to the trans tunnel.

[bigfatnick]

yeah, i heard about turning brackets round, the topic has come up a few times over on driftworks if your interested/can be bothered searching.

The handy thing about the e36 if you wanna fit sidemounts is that they have nice flat mounting points, that sit nice and low, most cars dont.

Edited by bigfatnick on Friday 13th November 18:32

[teabagger]

Some info and pics here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[Bmdub]

Dont bother with the sparco subframes, i brought some for my sparco corsa seats and they were almost touching the roof.

I had some custon mounts made from box section that attach to the original holes/studs in the floor and allows the side mounts to be mounted to them by have threaded studs welded to them

Also meant that the seats were tight to the transmission tunnel as per standard seats rather than shifted the right.

Only problem is they are not adjustable

[E36GUY]

Thanks for the replies gents. Still no closer to really solving the reach adjustment though. It is a must as it's not just me that will be driving.

[teabagger]

E36GUY said:

Thanks for the replies gents. Still no closer to really solving the reach adjustment though. It is a must as it's not just me that will be driving.

I would find a basic seat runner (old ford or bmw one from a scrappy for example) and make a backet up to attach the runner to the base of seat and one bracket to attach the runner to the floor of the car. This will prob end up adding height and weight though.