Thanks Joe and Charles

Joe - I always liked that picture, makes it look good and strong. How long are those bolts in the front? And how thick are the plates underneath?

I guess I could do this, and this would let me use both the sliders that I have now, and the sidemounts that I have now - since I won't be constrained by factory bolt locations.

Did you rip out the front mounting bar in your car? That would lower the seat a lot. Any way to raise it? Or weld new bar in the front and new bar in the back? Get rid of the e-brake? How long are the bolts that you used? And how thick are those plates underneath?

It's not a dedicated track car, I'll be doing autocrosses first to get my driving/reaction better, but eventually - I'd like to do "more" with it.

I haven't touched suspension/brakes yet (other then SS lines). I want to get it running good/cool, and get the inside good to where I am comfortable. And the rest comes on after.

 

This car went it backwards into the wall on turn 9 at HPT this last weekend. Luckily driver was ok. Seat ripped right out of the floor, seat back brace was ineffective and just rotated down (was backed up with welded bolts which didn't help). Her head glanced under the rear diagonal bar when it went backwards, she is very short. A tall person would have eaten it in the back of the neck.

 

How was the seat mounted to the floor?

 

I am assuming through the stock mounts, but I didn't want to go sticking my head in the poor ladies car after the incident.

 

It would be good to know.

Like I said I have seen the floor move in the 944 and would not be shocked to see the stock bolts rip out. I kind of hope my bolts do not rip out.

 

Doc, you mention that the seat back brace was ineffective, and it looks it -- did she have a passenger? That side looks fine.

 

wow that looks like a good hit too - check out that driver's side rear (bottom left) - wow

the thing with the slider is that, the part where the bolt goes into is about 3/4", plus I gotta be able to fit a socket to the bolt

so 3/8 or MAYBE 1/2" bolt sounds about right ... but if it goes right through the mounting bar, then it has to be one long bolt, no?

 

No, she was the only occupant, it was during one of the sprint races at the club race, so no passengers. Turn 9 is about a 90+mph kink, and she went backwards into the wall, hoped up on the tire wall and slide down that for awhile, then as the car was coming to a rest, it flopped off the tire wall and onto the roof. Hated to see it happen to her, she is a really nice lady. Response from the corner works and med team was great. Having seen this accident, I think anyone who has a clamp on seat back brace needs to have a proper brace welded in. I have used these IO Port braces in the past as well, and will never use them again.

 

Wow....

Was she hurt?

 

She was up walking around and felt fine after the accident. I finally talked one of our past region presidents into making her go to the hospital and get xrays. They had initially had her sign a waiver, but in that kind of wreck, you can have a severely injured, but non-symptomatic person that can be walking around fine, then all of a sudden turn their head the wrong way and that's all she wrote. I saw them leave for the hospital, and didn't hear anything about it after that, so I assume she checked out ok.

It is really hard to gauge the severity of a wreck from a small fender bender to something like this, but I was a little surprised there wasn't a PCA regulation that requires you to go to the hospital and get checked after a wreck like that. Since it was a PCA sanctioned club race, their official scruitineer was on hand to oversee it, I would have thought they would have done a little more than just written up the incident report.

 

Doc,
Thanks for sharing. It never good to post carnage pictures, but learning is very important. It looks like another 944 rear impact I have seen. The tub holds up quite well except for the floor pan. Seems like the weak point in rear impact is the seat mounting (be it the bolts or the floor). This tells me over the summer I need to add in a stronger cross bar in the floor.

 

Exactly. For me, this was a real wake up call to me on the back brace setup as I have done a couple of these. When it is installed, you don't think anything would ever be strong enough to rip it loose, but there you go. Out all of them come.

 

see in my case, my rear driver's seat mount has cracks around it right now - I finally got someone to come out and look at it and see if he can weld it in

now I was thinking that maybe I should ask him to weld in a bar right where rear seat mounts are right now - and then maybe do what Joe has done, and drill holes right through t he floors?

I'm kind of weary about that rear seat mount now, stock bolts or not, because its going to be welded, so how prone is it going to be to cracking/breaking again?

I guess for a low-speed/autocross, I should be fine even with stock bolts, but if I was to do something more serious, I think I agree with Joe

on the other hand, why bother doing it "for now" if I can have it done right now and not worry about it in the future ...

 

It may have been the floor mounting that ripped off or the brackets/seat assembly too... Do Corbeau seats are FIA approved?

I have seen a few 944 crash before and it's the first time I hear about the weakness of the floorpan... Is it a common failure?

C.

 

My guess is the stock mounts ripped out of the floor. Seats have to be FIA approved for use in Club Racing, so i assume they are.