Please tell me the seat cover on the FX1 Pro is not glued on. Please?!
Please tell me the seat cover on the FX1 Pro is not glued on. Please?!
I don't believe so... mine have a wire mechanism with springs that appear to be there to hold the cover on... but I haven't tried to take it off.
OK. I hope that is the case. The "plan," such as it is, is to remove the cushions and cover, shape the fiberglass shell to fit the car as much as possible, then put it all back together. If the cover is glued, that complicates the "plan" quite a bit.
I don't know if you've read Keith's blog, but he talks about removing the cover to modify the 'wings'... so it should be possible. His are bolted to the floor, so slightly different installation.
I read it last night. He talks about figuring out how to remove the covers, then talks about needing glue. The wording he used was a bit ambiguous to me last night, and that made me think Corbeau may have glued the edges of the cover. Now that I read it again, and read between the lines a little, I think he is saying he needed to glue the edges to make the cover fit better over the areas he ground away. That makes more sense than Corbeau doing something stupid like gluing the cover on. But, I've seen some pretty stupid things in the motorsports world--especially among low-priced products.
I'd completely forgotten about that. I'll have to go back and look at the seat 
Generally, if it wasn't difficult to figure out, I don't bother documenting it because it'll be just as easy next time for me or anyone else. Not shown in the build diary (possibly) is the dent on the door.
Keith Tanner wrote: I"ll bet the NC ones would fit an RX8. https://www.flyinmiata.com/awr-nc-brake-ducts.html
Following up on this, I emailed Goodwin Racing to ask about fitment, since they have some RX-8s in their stable. The answer is nope. They do not fit.
However, being that this is GRM, I have to be down with a little creative metal working. We know that RX-8 hubs are often used on NC MX-5s, so the bolt pattern must be correct. If so, the problem should be the different rotor diameters. If that is true, 30 minutes with a pair of aviation shears and a file should solve that. Alternatively, beat the outer lip flat all the way around with a BFH.
After experiencing the dramatic improvement of ducting the brakes on this Miata, I am going to find a way to get this done. Relocating sensor wires and such is looking a lot more reasonable to me now. Of course, I could always just roll my own, and I do have a spare set of 2.5" aluminum flanges left over from the Miata kit I bought...
Hmmm...
Maybe I will just roll these GRM style. This is a dust shield I just took off the Miata, but it is very similar to the RX-8 shield. Beat the scoop flat, violate with hole saw, rivet flange in place, check for rubbing and reshape as needed, paint to prevent rust, done. Cost is basically free.
Hmmm...
Well, that was more painful than between-the-toes tattoo removal with an uncalibrated plasma cutter.
The seat is in. For now. Unfortunately, it has to come back out, but I don't want to think about that right now.
You guys weren't kidding, when you said it would be a lot of work to shoe-horn that seat in. I worked on it much of the day Sunday, and for a few hours each on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. I didn't keep track exactly, but I'd say it took 12 hours of frustrating, boring, tedious work. One of these days, I will learn to pay someone to do the stuff I don't enjoy.
Keith was also right about needing to modify the bottom foam. Even with the seat sitting on the floor in the rear (touching the brackets with bottom mounting bosses cut off) and just above the floor in the front (about 1/4" above the brackets), the final seating height is about the same as the OEM seat was. I'll look into the options given for new foam that will drop me down as much as possible.
In the end, the seat is mounted as low as it can possibly be (without cutting on the floor), is a little better centered than OEM, has a nice recline of about 20*, is reasonably comforable, fits me well, and the door closes without touching the fiberglass in the wing. It also saves me about 7.8 lbs of weight on the driver's side, which is always welcome. And, the price was right.
I'll try to find the time later today to write up an installation narrative with lots of photos. I didn't find a lot in the way of complete information covering what it takes to mount a standard-sized seat in a Miata when I was searching, so it may help someone else for me to go into great detail.
Exit question: Now that I have done it once, I think I could do it again in 4 hours max. How much easier is the passenger side?
You can remove the seat mounting bosses from the floor - that'll get you as low as possible. Basically, you'll end up with the 'glass bottom of the seat just skimming the floorpan. Without dropping the floorpan, that's pretty much your hard limit.
The foam I used was Backsaver foam from Pegasus Racing, which appears to be 1" Confor Blue. It'll come as close as possible to no foam at all for height, and I know it's good for 13+ hours of comfort. Using generic mattress topper memory foam was good for about 30 minutes.
Let's install this thing. Or, at least begin the loooooooooooong process.
As previously mentioned, the seat is a Corbeau FX1 Pro, which is an inexpensive, entry-level, lightweight (17lbs) fiberglass composite "racing" bucket, that is not FIA rated. This seat can be side or bottom mounted, but unless you want to drive from a throne on high and snootily look down upon the Suburbans and Expeditions of this world, side mounting is the only option.
The bracket set I chose is the SB255DR from Planted Technologies. They have a hardware kit available for purchase for $12 or $15. You will not need it. The only parts you may use are flat washers that you can get from any hardware store's racing department. Everything else comes with the seat. The brackets are very well made, and are of powder coated steel construction. Numerous holes and slots are available for seat positioning, but the harness slots in the Corbeau seat restrict how far back the seat can be mounted without spacers between the seat and brackets, and spacers are death in a car this small (photo to come). Fortunately, my preferred seating position is compatible with this combination of kit.
Here are the brackets being test fitted for the first time. Look at the front of the inboard mount. The bolt is nearly all the way to the right. It needs to be all the way to the left for the seat to be mostly centered and fit in the car. To solve that problem, I cut out a small amount of carpet where the bracket touches the seam on the transmission tunnel and wailed on that sheet metal with my 3 lb BFH and a large blunt nose cold punch. A lot. For about 30 minutes. Plus time for test fitting repeatedly.
We will see the result of that in a few minutes, but let's have a look at test fitting the seat in the brackets without making any modifications first. With the seat pushed inboard as far as possible, it still contacts the map pocket on the door card near the bottom, and the wing contacts the door card on the top to the point the door will not close. The seat is mounted more than 2" off center toward the door. A harness will not work with my roll bar safely. Finally, the word "high" does not begin to describe it.
This is the area that needs a loving massage from your BFH. Wail on it about twice as much as you think you should, then wail on it twice that much more. Then do it again.
If you are slightly neurotic like I am, hit it with flat black paint to prevent rust and make it look nicer.
The reward for this little workout is a bracket that will slide all the way inboard.
That's probably enough photos for one post.
I would suggest simply peeling the carpet back for some of this work. Then you can wield your hammer with enthusiasm.
Moving on to modifying the seat itself.
Once you have made the determination that you are OK with ruining any resale value your seat may ever have, tape the seat up with trash bags to protect the fabric and get busy with your angle grinder. I used a cut-off disc first to cut the mounting bosses off the bottom. Then, I went to town with a metal grinding disc. I should have gone past town, because I didn't take enough off the first 2 times, had to hit again a 3rd time, then had to file parts of the bottom of the shell itself to square it up on the brackets.
Here it is after the cut-off disc. Grind those bosses ALL THE WAY DOWN. Also, do a better job of taping the trash bag seams than I did, because that dust gets EVERYWHERE. This should go without saying, but wear safety glasses, a face shield, and a respirator when you do this.
Once you get that all cleaned up, you can start test fitting the bracket to the seat, and both of those things to the car. I marked my OEM seat location with blue tape, and matched the new seat to that location as much as possible.
When you find your starting location, it is time to fine tune the fit of the brackets on the seat itself. You will want to use a mounting bolt to make sure the mounted seat will fit the bracket with the bolt in place.
You will probably find that you need to grind a recess with a Dremel tool to clear the bolt. You will probably also find that you need to grind or file the bosses more and maybe reshape the bottom of the shell. I think the seat met the grinder and a file 2 more times after this photo was taken.
As you test fit the brackets, you will probably see a lot of this, which will cause you to grumble bigly. Notice how the seat cannot be mounted any farther back with this bracket without using spacers (and, more importantly, interfering with your harness)?
Once everything fits together with proper clearance, assemble everything finger-tight and mount the seat in the car and sit in it to test its location. Sit it in for a while and operate the pedals and steering wheel, while making zoom-zoom sounds, to check all ergonomics. Make adjustments as needed by removing, reconfiguring, and remounting. Choose your the mounting holes for your final position, and mark them. Then test fit everything several more times. I recommend at least 647.
Should you mount the seat as low as I did, you will have to mount the brackets in the car first, because the rear mounting bolts have to be torqued before the seat is installed. This requires a LOT of adjustment--especially since the seat is not square. The brackets will be angled in a few degrees at the rear. The critical bolts are both of the inboard bracket bolts. The front needs to be tight against the transmission tunnel, and the rear needs to be a few mm in from touching the carpet. Once you think that bracket is in the right place, mount the seat to it and get an idea of where the other outboard bracket will fall. Keep adjusting things until the seat is mounted as far inboard as possible, both brackets line up with the seat, the seat is straight, and all 4 side mounting bolts can be finger-tightened without resistance. To make that process easier, I ended one evening by gluing a washer to the seat at each rear mounting point. The brackets should look something like this:
Reaching this milestone is a critical inflection point in the installation process. Remove the seat and torque the bracket mounting bolts to factory specs as you pray nothing moves. Then, test fit the seat AGAIN to make sure nothing did move. It moved. Start over.
Once that is out of the way, you can assess the situation with the left wing to see how much you need to grind off. Actually, you can do that earlier, because I did it for you. Grind ALL OF IT. Or at least, all of the lip.
The cover is held on by a spring and cable. Release the spring, and the cable will relax, which will allow you to peel the cover off the wing area. More trash bags and tape, and more time with the grinder. Shave all of the lip off the back side where it contacts the door. Don't worry about the cover, it will still attach and look normal afterward.
Here is a photo after not enough was shaved off. The part between the Sharpie marks needs to be ground all the way down.
This seems like a good stopping point.
Keith Tanner wrote: I would suggest simply peeling the carpet back for some of this work. Then you can wield your hammer with enthusiasm.
I thought about that, but disassembling the interior that far looked like work.
In other news, why does every vendor who sells Confor foam want $20 shipping for a piece of lightweight aircraft foam? Geez.
Putting it all together...
I highly recommend you do all the grinding at once. I didn't know exactly where or how much needed to be taken off the first time through, but armed with knowledge, I could do it all in one shot in less than an hour now.
Once everything is cleaned up, and the cover is back on, it is time to mount the seat for the "final" time. This is accomplished by dropping the seat into the brackets, inserting and tightening each side mounting bolt to finger tight, then tightening to snug plus 1/8 to 1/4 turn. Three of the bolts can be manipulated with a standard Allen key. The front right bolt requires that you get in your other car, drive to Harbor Freight, buy a cheap Allen wrench set for $5.99, drive back home, drag out the angle grinder you just put away, reinstall the cut-off wheel, cut off the short end of the 6mm key, and use your new stubby wrench to reach said bolt.
Again, all 4 of the side mounting bolts must line up well enough, that you can tighten them with your fingers, without putting any stress on the seat.
When finished, you can bask in the glory of your Ozymandian accomplishments by sitting in your new seat and cracking open the last and 30th of your fine Colorado brew.
Random thought: I know this seat is no lower than the OEM seat, because I did not have to adjust the rear view mirror. 
There is a harness in some of the pics. I am not satisfied with how it turned out, so I will be revisiting it in the near future with a different model. Some photos were taken before everything was completely buttoned up. Things like seat belt routing, etc. were left for last and are properly done.
Anyway, how much easier can I expect the passenger seat to be?
Wow... I had a much easier time. 
I also cut the bosses completely off, but I think the one piece bases I used made things a bit easier... not as much jockeying with the mounting. I probably had to do just as much pounding on the trans tunnel, though.
SteveDallas wrote:Keith Tanner wrote: I would suggest simply peeling the carpet back for some of this work. Then you can wield your hammer with enthusiasm.I thought about that, but disassembling the interior that far looked like work. In other news, why does every vendor who sells Confor foam want $20 shipping for a piece of lightweight aircraft foam? Geez.
Peeling the carpet back is super easy. We do it as part of the Butterfly installs.
Shipping costs money, and everyone's trying to get the lowest price for the foam. People gotta eat, even shipping staff. Or so I'm told.
Btw, my seat is bolted to the floor directly. No brackets.
Rodan wrote: Wow... I had a much easier time.
I looked for a one piece mount and did not find anything promising that was in stock anywhere. I also thought the flexibility of a bracket set might be useful, but it turned out to just be time consuming. The main issue was the lack of clearance for the rear bracket bolts. The heads sit in the recesses I ground into the seat, so they have to be torqued down first, and bracket alignment is a trial and error affair. Were you able to get your seat at least as low as mine with that base?
Keith Tanner wrote:SteveDallas wrote:Peeling the carpet back is super easy. We do it as part of the Butterfly installs. Shipping costs money, and everyone's trying to get the lowest price for the foam. People gotta eat, even shipping staff. Or so I'm told. Btw, my seat is bolted to the floor directly. No brackets.Keith Tanner wrote: I would suggest simply peeling the carpet back for some of this work. Then you can wield your hammer with enthusiasm.I thought about that, but disassembling the interior that far looked like work. In other news, why does every vendor who sells Confor foam want $20 shipping for a piece of lightweight aircraft foam? Geez.
Yeah, well, I'm a Miata newb. I didn't see any easy way to do it and did not think to stop and consult the internet for some reason. Newb making newb mistakes. Typical.
A piece of that foam will easily fit in a small box and ship first class mail for around $4. I called an aircraft supply company and got them to agree to charge me just a little more than that. I assume the shopping cart calcs the shipping based on dimensions, overriding weight, and can't account for the fact that it is, well, foam.
Why didn't I think of that?!?! How is does the angle of legs to pedals work for you?
The guy putting the stuff in the box still wants to be paid The part has to be pulled, shipping labels created, etc. Even if it only takes five minutes, that means the hourly wage of that person needs to be split amongst 12 packages. Shipping is one of those real costs that everyone doesn't believe really exists, especially since Amazon has decided it doesn't. But those costs have to be covered somewhere...
Angle of legs to pedal is just fine. I have a tendency to fiddle with everything, so the pedals are slightly modified with some covers and I have a deep dish wheel that sits closer to my chest than stock. It's a great position for me.
I have a brief track day update from last Saturday.
Unfortunately, I only managed 2 dry sessions in my own car. In those 2 sessions, my fastest consistent lap times were nearly exactly 1 second faster than before the seat and harness were installed. According to the AIM data, I could have been nearly an additional 1.5 seconds faster, but I somehow picked up a bad habit in a series of turns we call Rattlesnake. That will receive some attention next time out. I also discovered I have a bad habit of standing on the dead pedal--even when I don't need to. Ironing that out should be worth some time.
I did not record any video or take any photos, so I have nothing to show.
Here is another interesting tidbit. I was able to drive an NA Miata that was recently built for track duty, and was built to be as light as humanly possible. By light as possible, I mean complete and total weight reduction and only a Hard Dog Hard Bar for a roll bar. It was sporting Xidas on 800/500 springs, with an aggressive alignment, and a good, scrubbed set of Hoosiers. Its owner let me drive it for 5 hot laps. That gave me a chance to perform an apples to Ginsu knives comparison between Xida and FM Fox coilovers.
The short story is, I was 3.2 seconds faster in his car. That sounds like a lot, but the Hoosiers are worth quite a bit of time by themselves. There are also power to weight considerations, etc. And handling considerations. His car was biased toward slight understeer, which is my preferred setup, and my car is currently biased toward slight oversteer, especially at low speeds, which is decidedly NOT my preferred setup. My takeaways were, I want more power, a Torsen > a Tochigi Fuji diff, and I need to play with sway bars a little more. Also, the purple crack is fun. At no time did I regret buying FM Fox coilovers over Xidas.
His Xidas provided a great suspension, but they didn't do anything the FM Fox coilovers couldn't do on the track. There are a couple of areas on that track that really test the mettle of a set of shocks, and both passed with flying colors. One area is what we lovingly refer to as the "dip-slide," and it sits at a slick spot at corner exit of a 90* off-camber turn. It is actually the braking zone when running CCW, which is why it is so polished and slick. When you hit it with a less-than-excellent track suspension, the car will dip and transition immediately to maximum slip angle, hence the "slide", as the rear gets light coming out of the dip. Both cars absorbed the dip and stayed planted with my right foot on the floor all the way through. Another area is a high radius, high-speed, off-camber, uphill, blind turn called Ricochet. With ~100TW tires and a suspension that can control them, you can take that turn at upwards of 90mph in a Miata. It takes a lot of guts to do that, so most people with handling/momentum cars take it at 85 to 87. I didn't run a data logger in his car, and I doubt his speedometer was right (I know mine reads high on my tire size), but I was able to index at corner exit, and the speedos read a few ticks over 90 in both cars. On his Hoosiers, I probably could have gone faster than I did, but "not my car" and lack of guts held me back.
In summary, Xidas are great. FM Foxes are great too. I could not readily see an advantage to either product on the track from a driver's perspective. A good data logger and a controlled environment would be required to thoroughly test both and declare a winner, IMHO. Or, maybe just a better driver.
I wonder who had the more pleasant drive home? Both vendors claim their shocks can handle a wide range of springs. And, I have only driven FM Foxes on the street. If you were to ask me which product to choose with the experience I have right now, I could not make a definitive recommendation. I like them both on the track and only have experience with one on the street. It's a toss-up for me at this point.
Back to the seat and harness.
My Confor blue 1" foam came in and is in the seat as the main cushion now. Listen to Keith. This stuff is wonderful. I didn't take any photos of the install process, but it consists of simply removing the old foam through the Velco access under the cushion, using the old foam as a pattern, cutting the new foam to fit with a pair of poultry shears, stuffing it in the cover, and closing it back up. I am sitting about 1" lower now, and it is quite comfortable.
I bought another piece for the front leg bolster, which I intended to sort of roll up inside the cover, but I decided to cut 1" off the bottom of the factory foam with a bread knife first. So far, that seems to be all that is needed. I'll drive it this way for a while and see how I like it.
Today's project is to use some of the foam remnant to fashion some additional lumbar support in the back cushion.
I ordered a Racequip 3" 5 point harness in an attempt to solve my harness problem, but I could not find a way to make it play nicely with the factory seatbelt, so I can't use it. The next thing to try is a Corbeau 4 point harness. In photos at least, it looks like its dimensions will better work with the car and the seat. The sticking points are the size and shape of the hard point tabs and the locations of the lap belt adjusters. The lab belt adjusters on the Schroth harness I tried first cinched up against the shell of the seat on the outside. The situation on the sides of the seat needs to be 1" shorter, or the adjusters need to sit in my lap inside the seat. The Racequip harness was an attempt to move the adjusters to my lap. The Corbeau harness is an attempt to shorten the side situation. Hopefully that works.
I would not use a 4-point harness, personally.
How does it conflict with the factory 3-point belt?
I'm not a fan of 4 point harnesses either--even if they are labeled ASM. The only reason I am considering it is, this car will be used for HPDE only. In the 15 years this driving school has been in operation, there has never been a paint-on-paint incident, and I have never witnessed a close call in the 4 years I have been driving with them. This track has plenty of run-off almost everywhere, and there are no walls to worry about. And, I drive defensively.
The short version of the conflict is, there is not enough real estate on the transmission tunnel to mount the seat belt receiver and a bolt for the harness, with their respective backing plates in full contact with sheet metal, at the approved angles as specified in the instructions. I'm sure there is with some seats in the right seating position, but not this one in my seating position. Remember that NB2s do not have the factory hard point on the transmission tunnel, as it has been replaced by a rather large indentation and a wiring harness (which could be relocated, of course). On the door side, the harness hardware will not share the mounting bolt with the seat belt and allow the seat belt freedom of motion to rotate into proper position. I could fabricate one larger backing plate with holes for both on the transmission side, but that doesn't solve the outboard side, and I no longer have the tools to do it myself. Now that I think about it, I could probably use eye bolts with a clip-in harness and make that work. I'll look at that tonight. I may be starting over on this again...
In any case, nothing I do to the car is necessarily permanent. Should applications change, hardware can change with them.
I had another track day yesterday and learned a few things.
Additionally, I experienced a Miata rite of passage! I shredded my right front fender liner, thanks to bands of other people's R comp rubber peeling off my tires and tearing at it. I now know first-hand how all those fender liners end up in the trash cans around the track! Yay!(?)
This track day was a member day, so I had no students about whom to worry. Well, there was one student: my 18 year-old son. I drove 2 sessions, when traffic was heaviest, and he drove 4 to learn the ropes as a first-timer. It was like drinking from a fire hose for him, but I think he had fun?
Seat and Harness
The new seat is working well for me. I wish I could move it 1/2" back, but I can't due to the way the brackets are made. I may circle back to that in the future, but it is close enough for now.
Although not exactly ideal, the harness fits well and worked well for its intended purpose, too. I spent my 2 sessions trying to learn to relax now that I don't need to hold myself in my seat anymore, and was more or less successful at it. In the end, I shaved another second off my personal best in the Miata. It won't be long, before I match my RX-8 PB at this rate.
I found the upper limit of comfort for 1" Confor foam. It is about 3 hours.
Tires
I do believe I discovered first-hand why people in-the-know tried to steer me away from Toyo R888s (after I had already bought them). These tires had been great in colder weather, and on track days where few people were running R comps. It was in the high 80s yesterday, and pretty much everyone was running R comps. When these R888s would get hot, they would pick up tons of other people's rubber, which would form huge clumps. Then, the tires would slough it off in large bands. That may be a feature of other sticky tires, but I don't remember my NT01s, RE-71Rs, or RC-1s ever doing it to anywhere near that degree. Perhaps I simply have not been on the track with that combination of heat and amount of R comp rubber littered about.
The other less than ideal characteristic I found is, the tires did overheat and get greasy about 15 minutes into a 30 minute session, when I was driving. That didn't bother me much, since I could just take a few cool-down laps to make them happy again, but it might be a problem for other people. I'll finish these tires off and either try RA1s or go back to NT01s in the future. For the $88 each they cost me, I'm not unhappy with them, however.
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