Non-TVR seats and harness

[tacoma]

OK for all the purists out there I am sorry but I would like to fit seats and a four point harness., I am going to do a couple of RideDrive courses and then start to attend some track days. Having taken the advice of some PH TVR gurus last year about living with the car for a year before modifying it - sound advice, thanks.

This thread mentioned some seats www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=2&f=8&t=195407&h=0&hw=seats is this list still valid, does anyone have any experience of the seats mentioned?

Still love the Chim and even her indoors couldn't convince me to change it for another in the range, but, want to strike the balance of looks and performance with some new seats and harness.

What would you suggest?

thanks m

[TimmyArt]

My last Trev was a 3000M Turbo. I did a few hillclimbs, sprints and trackdays... so not to ruin the fantastic look of the interior I just used 3 or 4 point harnesses. Obviously a racing seat would have given me lots more support and probably trimmed a second off my times but I wanted it to look nice too so I stuck with the seat and clipped the belts in when using in anger!! Have no experience of those seats... Demon Tweeks catalogue usually have the weights of the seats.. www.demon-tweeks.co.uk I think

>> Edited by TimmyArt on Wednesday 22 March 18:54

>> Edited by TimmyArt on Wednesday 22 March 18:54

[tvrbob]

Just need to point something out. Looking at your car it doesn't appear to have a roll bar. Wearing a full harness forces you to keep your head up so that you can't escape in the event of a roll. Most knowledgeable outlets will advise you not to fit a harness without roll over protection.

[lig]

Hi M,

I have just fitted 3 point harnesses to my Griff. Was quite a straight forward job because it had the captive nut on the chassis. I was told that pre 96 Griffs have this as standard and 'some' Chims also had it. It would be worth a look, you will have to jack the car up, and remove the back wheel. it is located just above where the top wishbone mount is. If you have the bible there is a diagram in there.

As for the seats, I have kept standard but I did have a long chat with Paul at Motordrive seats (motordrive.com) and he was really helpful. He tailor makes some seats that fit the griff chim, which seem pretty good. I spoke to a chap who had them in the griff and he rated them. Paul said I could drive over and check out a few samples to see what they are like, even take my seat out and try them.

I am going to run this seasons hillclimbs with just the harness and see how it performs before splashing out on the seats!! as it instantly feels better!

Drop me a mail if I can be of any more help. And let me know what you go for in the end.

Lig.

[tacoma]

Lig thanks for this advice, like TVRBob says i will consider a roll over bar but as Tim pointed out I don't really want to ruin the look of the car.

I might go for a comibination of Tuscan seats and a harness as i am not sure how often I will want to 'track' the car.

Any pictures would be very gratefully recieved.

m

[tvrbob]

The CG Lock is said to be an excellent compromise. It keeps you tight into the base of your seat like a passenger aircraft lap belt but leaves the top section free to utilise the inertia system. The biggest problem with the standard TVR setup on track is bum slip on the nice polished leather seat when cornering. Altering your existing seat belt to 'fix' the lap section with a quick release device may be a good compromise allowing the car to remain rollbarless. I have considered this device because I don't want to fit a rollbar.

This device is often discussed on PH and is well liked.

www.cg-lock.co.uk/

[mph.52]

I have no roll bar and have also found that the bum slips around a tad to much when sprinting and the like and have just found out that Steve guglielmi is just making another batch of tubular harness bars that fit between the two top seat belt mounts and allow the fitting of a full haness as well as the standard lap belt.At 115 pounds +vat it looks like a good and reasonable solution - Saw one fitted at north weald sprint last weekend and it shouldn't spoil the look of your pride and joy!

[GreenV8S]

mph.52 said:

I have no roll bar and have also found that the bum slips around a tad to much when sprinting and the like and have just found out that Steve guglielmi is just making another batch of tubular harness bars that fit between the two top seat belt mounts and allow the fitting of a full haness as well as the standard lap belt.At 115 pounds +vat it looks like a good and reasonable solution - Saw one fitted at north weald sprint last weekend and it shouldn't spoil the look of your pride and joy!

It's not brilliant because the end mounts are only bobbins into fibreglass (they're the original top mounts so no worse than standard to be fair) but really I advise against wearing a harness without rollover protection. With a normal seatbelt, you stand a reasonable chance of surviving a rollover. With a harness and no rollover protection it is more or less certain to be fatal. Rollover protection comes first, harness comes second. Both well worth having but in that order.

[zumbruk]

mph.52 said:

I have no roll bar and have also found that the bum slips around a tad to much when sprinting

You may think this sounds stupid, but it really does work; I sit on a rubber bathmat when competing, which completely eliminates the "bum slip"! One of the other TVRCC Speed competitors is using some of that rubber
mesh designed to go under rugs on polished floors, which allows him to cover the seat completely. He says he thinks
it's a brilliant idea...

And at about a fiver, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than a competition seat.

[GarryM]

Have to agree with the advice of getting roll over pretection first. Have you seen that pic' of a Griff upside down resting on bonnet and boot

I found the addition of a harness a big improvement. I still find the standard seats unsupportive though. It's not just your backside that slides around (which you can minimize by having your harness really tight) but your upper body which tends to make you hold the wheel tighter than you should.

I've bought some Sparco Tec seats (new name for Ultra). They are one of only a handful that will fit. I'm in the process of making up some mounts so that I can easily swap them for the standard seats. Sparco will hold you in place but they're not exactly comfy compared to the originals.

[steve-v8s]

I do exactly that on the Griff. After a lot of searching found that the Ultra was about the only one that would fit. Even then I had to take they cover off and remove about 5mm each side. I use a mounting arrangement that lets me lift out the standard seat and drop in the Ultra in about 5 mins. This, with the harness attached to the factory roll bar makes the car significantly more chuckable on the hills.

[GarryM]

Steve, would you mind telling me how you did it? I'm intending to make some plates up with welded bolts that will fit into the existing holes in the floor. The plates will have additional holes to line up with those in the seat and I'll need spacers to get the seat sitting upright - they seem to lean towards the outside of the car otherwise. The swap will then involve undoing the nuts under the car, swapping the seats and doing the nuts up again. More than 5 mins but probably no more than 15 mins per side.

[steve-v8s]

I used standard Sparco steel mounting brackets bolted to the sides. As they bulge out slightly I had to grind off about 15mm at the front on the transmission tunnel side. Also the seat was slightly too wide at the point to each side of my knees. Again this pressed against the transmission tunnel and also stopped the door from shutting. To fix this I pealed off the cover and relieved the fibreglass a little. Couldn’t see that either of the mods had any impact on strength.

With brackets fitted I made two nice sturdy bars that bolt across between the two brackets and drilled holes to match two of the original ones in the floor. I found that only two of the original holes were any use (can’t remember if it was the front or rear pair) but drilled two new ones for the second pair. As there are now six holes rather than four there are simply a pair blanking bolts in whichever are the spare ones.

All the bolts are captive so to fit you simply lift out the old one, drop in the new one and fit the bolts.

Probably the most important bit was I made some steel plates that remain attached to the underside of the floor. It was quite scary to see how little area the seat load was spread over with the standard fixings.

[GreenV8S]

steve-v8s said:

Probably the most important bit was I made some steel plates that remain attached to the underside of the floor. It was quite scary to see how little area the seat load was spread over with the standard fixings.

That's an excellent idea, the original mounts into the fibreglass floor are rather scary. Ideally, extend the plates backwards and forwards far enough to reach the chassis and bolt to that.

[Dave 500]

Just to add my 5p worth I have harness's and no roll bar my old man was a Police Accident Investigator for over 10 years and told me not to bother and waste my money on somthing else. Reason 1 was you are much more likley to have a rear end shunt on the road where your head can move over a meter forward or back even when hit at low speeds now don't know about you but I don't want to be hit by a 3" metal bar at 30 mph. So unless you have a helmet on all the time it will be the same as having a loaded gun behind your head. Reason 2 not much chance of you rolling it in the real world cars do sometimes roll over but not as much a people think you will have to be very unlucky. He has very down to earth real world views on safty and his view was it was more likey to kill you than save your life. PS he also said if I had one fitted he would never go in the car again says it all really.

>> Edited by Dave 500 on Monday 27th March 09:59

[Daftlad]

lig said:

Hi M, I have just fitted 3 point harnesses to my Griff. Was quite a straight forward job because it had the captive nut on the chassis. I was told that pre 96 Griffs have this as standard and 'some' Chims also had it. It would be worth a look, you will have to jack the car up, and remove the back wheel. it is located just above where the top wishbone mount is. If you have the bible there is a diagram in there. As for the seats, I have kept standard but I did have a long chat with Paul at Motordrive seats (motordrive.com) and he was really helpful. He tailor makes some seats that fit the griff chim, which seem pretty good. I spoke to a chap who had them in the griff and he rated them. Paul said I could drive over and check out a few samples to see what they are like, even take my seat out and try them. I am going to run this seasons hillclimbs with just the harness and see how it performs before splashing out on the seats!! as it instantly feels better! Drop me a mail if I can be of any more help. And let me know what you go for in the end. Lig.

Off thread a wee bit, have you got an entry for the 16th April at Harewood??

[marco]

Dave 500 said:

snip ... I don't want to be hit by a 3" metal bar at 30 mph.

This is a good point. I'm above average height but (not driving with the max power, straight arm technique!) my seat is nowhere near all the way back. I was unable to get the standard TVR roll cage into a position where I wasn't inches away from it and ended up returning it.

I'd be interested to hear your father's thoughts on the Tower View roll bar that was designed to overcome this exact problem as this is where my money will probably go very shortly.

Pics here : www.thegriffithpages.com/content/view/51/83/


Cheers


Marco

[ATG]

I'm surprised your Dad considers it difficult to roll a car. My cousin has done it when his car was clipped on a motorway when being overtaken, my uncle has done it when he fell asleep on the M4 (pillock) and I came very close to rolling a Celica at no more than 30mph when I slid into mud off an icey lane ... roll only stopped by the bonnet hitting an earth bank. Given that you can (and ought) to put impact absorbing foam on a rollbar, and that if it properly positioned, its not going to be any closer to your head than plenty of other rigid and padded bits of the car, I think it is a bit of an exaggeration to describe it as being like a loaded gun.

[zumbruk]

Dave 500 said:

Just to add my 5p worth I have harness's and no roll bar my old man was a Police Accident Investigator for over 10 years and told me not to bother and waste my money on somthing else. Reason 1 was you are much more likley to have a rear end shunt on the road where your head can move over a meter forward or back even when hit at low speeds now don't know about you but I don't want to be hit by a 3" metal bar at 30 mph.

Which is why you (i) pull the seat headrest up so as it's between your head and the bar and then (ii) stick a large piece of FIA roll-bar "foam" anywhere your head could come into contact with the bar (including behind the headrest). Anyone who doesn't do this is asking for trouble.

>> Edited by zumbruk on Monday 27th March 13:36

[zumbruk]

marco said:

Dave 500 said: snip ... I don't want to be hit by a 3" metal bar at 30 mph. This is a good point. I'm above average height but (not driving with the max power, straight arm technique!) my seat is nowhere near all the way back. I was unable to get the standard TVR roll cage into a position where I wasn't inches away from it and ended up returning it. I'd be interested to hear your father's thoughts on the Tower View roll bar that was designed to overcome this exact problem as this is where my money will probably go very shortly. Pics here : www.thegriffithpages.com/content/view/51/83/

I have a Tower View (actually, it's made by Rollcenter) bar in my Chim, and you really want some padding on that, as you would in the Griff in the pics. If you get rear-ended by some nitwit, that bar is going to whack you on the back of the head, and the leather ain't going to provide a whole lot of protection.