Any idea how much headroom I can make with Recaro PP?

[ionofchios]

Anyone have any idea how much extra headroom I can get by replacing my manual normal (non sport) seat with a Recaro PP? I’m 6’4” and I want to sit lower, and ideally have a bit more legroom, but that is secondary.

Car is e86 3.0si.

 

[mmm-five]

Where are you based? If you're local to me (in Liverpool) then you're welcome to try mine out for fit...although I wouldn't say they make much difference, as I didn't need to adjust my steering wheel or mirrors after I'd fitted them (but I'm a short-arse at 5'10").

 

[ionofchios]

Where are you based? If you're local to me (in Liverpool) then you're welcome to try mine out for fit...although I wouldn't say they make much difference, as I didn't need to adjust my steering wheel or mirrors after I'd fitted them.

Finland

Do you have them mounted as low as they will go? I have no idea what sort of adjustability you get with Recaro mounting hardware.

 

[mmm-five]

I’ve got the ABE PP version, and I know the sidemounts are different to the FIA PP version, but the rears I’ve got as low as I can (of 2 positions), and the front as high as I can (of 3 or 4 positions).

The only way I could make it lower is to bolt them straight to the floor, instead of on floormounts & runners, but you’d have to customise the sidemounts to fit the floor as the seat mounts are much narrower than the floor bolt holes - even then you’d only gain about 25mm.

Some pictures for reference, maybe they’ll show you where the current seat sits in relation to a standard seat.





In the above pictures, the drivers seat is set as low at the back, and as high at the front as possible. The passenger side is set to low at the back and low at the front (but I found that didn’t support my legs, so have tilted the drivers seat up at the front) You can see the difference in thigh cushion height between the drivers & passenger sides.

 

[ionofchios]

I’ve got the ABE PP version, and I know the sidemounts are different to the FIA PP version, but the rears I’ve got as low as I can (of 2 positions), and the front as high as I can (of 3 or 4 positions).



The only way I could make it lower is to bolt them straight to the floor, instead of on floormounts & runners, but you’d have to customise the sidemounts to fit the floor as the seat mounts are much narrower than the floor bolt holes - even then you’d only gain about 25mm.

Some pictures for reference, maybe they’ll show you where the current seat sits in relation to a standard seat.





In the above pictures, the drivers seat is set as low at the back, and as high at the front as possible. The passenger side is set to low at the back and low at the front (but I found that didn’t support my legs, so have tilted the drivers seat up at the front) You can see the difference in thigh cushion height between the drivers & passenger sides.

Thanks - god pictures! I will go out to the garage later and see if I can see some point of reference in the pics compared to my car now. 25mm lower would actually make a difference, so that might be worth the extra hassle.

I guess I am trying to achieve several things: a more supportive seat, a feeling of sitting lower, better visibility horizontally and upwards (eyeline not so high in the roof), a smidge more leg extension and less visual obstruction from the rearview mirror.

 

[ionofchios]

Also, I wondering if I could run the same mounting hardware that you have, but modify the Recaro side mounts so that the back of the seat is lower - any idea if that looks like a possible option? Maybe trim down the top of the mount and put an extra, lower hole in

 

[mmm-five]

I don't know about the PP (FIA) seats, but the highest hole on mine is just below the seatbelt hole in the side of the seat, so nowhere higher to go.





Also, the side mounts are about 30mm inside of the standard seat bolt holes (hence those juicy floor mount adapters), so you'd have to find a way to widen them to fit or make custom side-mounts. Obviously it has been done before, as I've seen many race seats bolted directly to the floor in race & track cars, but I think that involved welding new bolt holes to the floor.

 

[ionofchios]

[ref]mmm-five[/ref], again, great pics! I guess I need to think about this a bit.

 

[Z4 Gaz]

You could make your own flat floor mount from 5mm aluminium plate to bolt to, that would save you 20mm or so.

A quick look on ebay and 400mmx100mmx5mm plate is less than £13 each, although that was a rough guess at sizes.

 

[mmm-five]

You could make your own flat floor mount from 5mm aluminium plate to bolt to, that would save you 20mm or so.

A quick look on ebay and 400mmx100mmx5mm plate is less than £13 each, although that was a rough guess at sizes.

The original floor mounts I wanted (PSDesigns) were thinner, but of a different grade aluminium (5080 aerospace grade), but they were on 12 week back order (and now no longer listed on their site) when I was ordering so the Macht Schnell (6061-T6 aerospace grade) ones were sent in their place. These things are so heavy that I thought I'd been sent steel or iron ones by mistake, but they're not magnetic.

You could save 5mm by not having the seat belt mounting bar I've installed...

...and another 10mm by not having sliding rails...

 

[ionofchios]

Yeah, was thinking I could make my own sheet metal mount for the floor and mount the Recaro mounts direct to that. Looks like reduction of 25mm, roughly, as mentioned above.