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6' 3" + Drove a S14 = Ow, My Head!

18K views 51 replies 11 participants last post by  sr20goofus 
#1 · (Edited)
Alright, so I drove a friends S14 over the weekend for autocross.

I fell in love with it. It was a bone stock S14 with GR2s, bad brakes and a shitty Viper alarm system. Something about the way it pushed me around the course made me really want to build an STS 240sx. Over the next year or so I will be putting together an S13 on the side to be used as a stepping stone for a serious street car and a Solo2 STS fist machine.

As we know, with all love, comes pain. When I sit in the driver's seat, my head smacks the headliner. I'm a pretty tall guy. I was 6'3" the last time I checked (last year). I am probably about 6'4" right now.

As you can imagine, a helmet makes things a little bit more difficult, considering it adds about 2" to your height.

I had to stick the top of my head out of the sunroof in order to fit. Because I was leaning to the right for all my runs, my back hurts a lot right now.

I'm wondering if you guys know what it would take to get an S13 to fit a guy my size.
 
#4 ·
I'm new to the 240 scene, so I don't really know how much lower the S13 sits compared to the S14.

To answer your question, yes I do fit fine with the helmet off... I'm only 185lbs, so I'm not really that big.

The Sparco Evo seats use sidemount holes for mounting, this can allow you to get the seat lower and it also has a removal seat cushion, this will also allow you to drop down an addtional 1". I'll know more in the next month or two once I get the seat in.
 
#5 ·
Actually, it feels like the S14 seat in S14s sit lower than S14 seats in S13s.

S13 seats in S13s FEEL like it's lower cause the bottom cushion on the S13 seats are usually worn down and compressed, so it's "lower".

You can probably gain an inch or half an inch by running the Bride/Nagisa super low rails and side mount seat brackets.

Moving the seat back also helps.
 
#6 · (Edited)
its very tough getting any seat low enough for the 6'2" community in any S-chassis (13/14).

i have come up with another method for mounting my seat low enough to clear rollcage bars (legally) and generally have enough space between my helmet and the roof (4"). I am 6'4" and my car is track only making my mods easier to consider and accomplish without worry of not being streetable.

the hump for the catalytic converter in teh floor is why our seats sit so high, this has to be trimmed in order to get it very low, i even tried making my own mounts to get my race seats as low as possible, but it only gave me a 2" max clearence between helmet and roof, nto enough in my mind.

i cut the cat hump out from the front seat support back, and filled it in weith metal to open up the floor more. then i used 3/16" flat bar to be teh baseplates for my seat rails which were made out of a combination of angle steel and square tube.


this setup gave me 4" clearence over my helmet, and a VERY solid mounted seat all while following all safety regulations in SCCA and NASA rule books.

i will post more pics of the actual seat rails next weekend, for now you get to see the cut-up/welded up floor and drawing of rails in Windows Paint.


enjoy...





seat rail drawing...






similar design, except furter back, and maintaining the chassis brace....

 
#7 ·
^^^ Thanks for sharing the pictures and comments... I'd really like to see the pictures of your sliders that your building.

I'm having a cage, basic 4pt with harness bar and cross brace, built sometime this year and am really wanting to get the seat as low as possible for safety reasons as you mentioned.
 
#8 ·
Why did you not remove the cat hump all the way to even out the floorboard further forward?

Monty I told you to bring that mother hummer over here and we'll take care of it.=)
 
#10 ·
McCoy said:
^^^ Thanks for sharing the pictures and comments... I'd really like to see the pictures of your sliders that your building.

I'm having a cage, basic 4pt with harness bar and cross brace, built sometime this year and am really wanting to get the seat as low as possible for safety reasons as you mentioned.

no sliders.....hard mounted, sliders are bad-news-bears for track.....not recommended, bt you can use universal Sparco sliders if you wanted i guess, wouldnt be ahrd to mount....



veilside180sx said:
Why did you not remove the cat hump all the way to even out the floorboard further forward?
i wanted to keep that brace in there as some structural support, some people think it doesnt do anything but mount seats, i think it helps to stiffen across floor boards. That and i didnt need to cut forward any further then where it is now, caus eim tall enough to keep the seat that far back. make sense?
 
#12 ·
no sliders.....hard mounted, sliders are bad-news-bears for track.....not recommended, bt you can use universal Sparco sliders if you wanted i guess, wouldnt be ahrd to mount....
:redface: I meant to say seat mount, not sliders.

I've used the univeral sparco sliders in my sentra for the past two years and don't really feel comfortable with them on track... especially when a cage is added
 
#15 ·
I personally just need enough room to be able to wear my helmet for autocross. There is no caging and worries of flipping over for me.

Since I'll be building this on the side, I suppose I could cut out the cat hump... I don't think that's legal for STS, but the club I run in is very leniant on the rules.
 
#17 ·
Sorry i didnt feel like removing my seat for pics...time was an issue and these should explain themselves enough me thinks...













harness bar location...WAY LOW....gettin fixed in about 3 weeks, still deciding wheather to leave the old harness bar in there to avoid removing it, or to remove it due to its uslessness.

pic:
 
#19 ·
im 6'7" and i drive a s13 hatch with the stock seats, now i dont autocross or drift my car but i do drag it im not gonna lie with the helmit on its kinda rough blasting down the track, but it reall dosent affect me that much. maby just because i dont have ti on that long. i just slouch in the seat a bit more.
 
#20 ·
im 5'2" so i cant say i know how you feel..i can pretty much fit in one of these:D

but i do no of one way you can solve your problem without any modification

although i wouldnt recommend it cuz i personally dont like convertibles but to each its own
 
#21 ·
Even with the top UP, a S13 convertible has an insane amount of headroom.

Consider this:

I'm 5'9" - 5'10" tall, and my head (sans helmet) does not come up above the rear headrests on the stock S13 seats. I can measure for you, but the estimate is an *easy* 6-8 inches of headroom with the top up.

Unlimited headroom with the top down, of course, and a 4-6 point bar added.

The trade-off is that you acquire flexibility in the chassis. However, it's still a S13 and can use all the suspension/stiffening tricks the coupes and hatchies use.

I wouldn't rule out a S13 convertible if I were 6'4" and up. Seriously. You'd have to add some extra bracing, sure. But your neck and spine would be intact should (heaven forbid) any off-track/upside down excursions were to happen.
 
#22 ·
Well, if your head sticks out above the windshield and the protected areas of your roll cage, wouldn't you get hurt still? And if you get hurt, I'd think you'd get hurt worse, as it's now a straight shot from the road to your helmet, not even with a thin layer of metal there to protect you...
 
#30 ·
My car (S13 coupe) has a sunroof; I'm 5'8" and with a helmet I fit fine with stock S14 seats. I did NOT fit with a GTR seat, it put me too high. I'm starting to realize though that I like to sit in a more upright position than most folks, and I'm shaped with a long torso and short legs despite my short overall height, which adds to the problem.

I've looked into removing the sunroof, but there's no solution that will leave the car looking OK as well as remaining watertight...
 
#32 ·
Try what Orion did w/ his S14. He cut out a sheet of lexan glass (or was it aluminum?) and just sealed it onto the open hole, and took out all the sunroof parts. Gained like 2 inches of headroom or something.

My seat is pretty close to the steering wheel, and I think I have the back support at 3 clicks from full upright. S14 seats.


All SE's do not have sunroofs, as neither of mine have. I don't think the coupe and hatch have any more headroom than each other, with the exception fo the backseat.
The coupe w/ the sunroof has less headroom than the hatches, due to the fact that the coupe's sunroof is an electronic one, so there needs to be room for the motor and tracks and stuff for it to retract inside the roof when it's open. That's headroom lost to the sunroof there.

The hatches' sunroof is a manual flip one, so there's not much room lost, if any, due to the sunroof.
 
#31 ·
All SE's do not have sunroofs, as neither of mine have. I don't think the coupe and hatch have any more headroom than each other, with the exception fo the backseat.
 
#33 ·
Yeah, I saw the operation you're referring to (if you mean the guy on Zilvia).

I'm not sure that's the way. I'd be worried about it coming loose, unless it was riveted down or whatever, which I'm not willing to do to my car. I wish there was a plug made for the S13 (like the one Octotat/Chuck makes for B13), that might be a way to go.

For now I'll just live with the S14 seats, which fit OK with my helmet on. I want to try one track day with that setup to see if it's worth it to me to get different seats, considering that I doubt I'll do more than one or two track days a year...
 
#35 ·
^^^ next question, how much room do you have from the back of your head to the cage :).

I thought about the Autopower bolt-in cage, but have been told by Veilside180sx, who saw one installed in a S13 a few days ago, that the main hoop is way to close to the head area... especially if your driving around without a helmet on :eek:.

I've also been looking at 'weld-in' kits, but I'm thinking these have the same issue as the autopower cage due to the legs of the main hoop being mounted to the floor board behind the front seats. I noticed that yours is mounted to the back seat area. Guess I'll be looking at having a local shop due a custom cage in the not so distant future :(.

This is for a car that I DD very little and use monthly for track events... so a rear cage is acceptable and I'm willing to take the risk of a head injury driving it on the street. I have in the garage a Sparco Evo seat for the drivers side, unknown what I'm using for the passanger side yet, and a pair of 6-pt harnesses. I just want to make sure that the cage is far enough back to keep me safe in a somewhat smaller accident if something like that was to occur :(. My friend with a 99 camero SS has the Autopower cage in his car and my head hits the main hoop just by sitting back all the way... with the sentra the main hoop of the Autopower cage was above/back from your head... much safer!!!

Sorry... I'm getting off topic here, but I thought it was worth bringing up :)
 
#36 ·
i dont know how far forward i am, but the Kirkey seats i have actually prevent my head from even being able to go back far enough to hit the main hoop unless the seat bends. id say minimal of 3" from Bar, but i can tget any closer than that.

the autopower bar mounts to the floor behind drivers/pass. seats this moves the bar about 6" closer than mine at least. there are other options out there to save some movey on fab. from a goos weld shop. contact battleversion.com about a weld in kit. the guys over there make a good kit they well for welding in.

i have more then enough space with how my riollbar is setup, since it was designed around the fat that i have long legs and sit back really far it help sgiv eme extra clearence, i would never fit with some crappy autopower in there, i say crappy cause i have a HUGE lack of respect for bolt in cags and bars....
 
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