mikew968

I am currently running recaro pp seat and am looking to move to a "hans" style seat in the <$1000 range. The ones i see that seem to look good are the Sabelts. OMP, and racetech. Anybody have any recommendations or other suggestions?

Thanks, Mike

mnorek

Take a look at the Cobra Sebring S. It is a very nice seat. If I saw it/tried it out before I bought a Recaro Pro Racer SPG for my other car, I would have saved myself some money. It is a HANS compatible seat and FIA approved.

Sube is the distributor. See: link to Sube

karlooz

sparco circuit pro. hans compatible, FIA approved and retails for 850.

TheOtherEric

Be very very careful about buying seats from Sube. I bought my cobra seats there, and it was probably the worst car-part buying experience I've ever had. They were absolutely clueless about their products and how to install, and this caused a lot of wasted money and effort for me. For quite a while afterward, I hear they declined to sell seats for ANY porsche install since they had no idea what they were doing. Huge mistake buying from them.

Racerrob

I have the Sabelt Taurus XL and I am pleased with it. It is very comfy and the wings around your head are not obtrusive. If you are "big and tall" you will like it. Site sponsor www.apexperformance.net has them.

mnorek

Valuable information. I should have pointed out that I have no experience with Sube, I provided the link because it is a good source for info on the seats.

That said, while I used to like to think I can handle a basic task like figuring out how to mount a seat, unless I'm bolting a Euro GT3 seat into a GT3, experience has taught me that a race shop tech with OCD is the one who should handle such work. Besides, it is exceedingly rare to speak to someone selling parts who has first-hand experience with their product in your application, so you are most likely going to get someone's best guess unless you're dealing with a specialist such as Brey-Krause or similar outfit.

GeorgeNZ

Mike - I run the Racetech 4009's in the 968 and find them excellent. They're fairly high-sided so give great support (cw Momo Top Nascar). The wings make it quite awkward getting in and out with the Hans on (cage has got quite high intrusion bars) so I also use the quick release tethers on the Hans it makes a quick egress a lot quicker and cleaner (I practice and have only had to do it once in anger).

I've mounted the seat on runners but its still tight because the main hoop diagonal limits rear movement.

So, thumbs up for the Racetech but be aware that the wings do project into the door area and if you've got other stuff like intrusion beams it can make it tricky.

richard glickel.

Mike,

I use the Recaro (not the Hans specific seat) seat.

I also like the Ultra-shield (aluminum) seat. A friend with a 951 racecar has this seat and I thought it was very comfortable when I sat in his car.

jaydubya

Make sure to try out these seats before you mail order one so you don't run into any problems with them fitting you. For instance, the Sparco Circuit Pro is a reasonably priced seat but it is very short. The harness holes were at least two inches too low for me (I'm 6'0" 210 lbs).

The issue about ingress/egress that has been mentioned is also important.

I picked up a used Recaro SPG Pro Racer XL for $750 on Ebay after trying one out in a friend's car. It's a nice seat, but getting it to mount low enough in my 911SC was a lot of work.

RedlineMan

Ha!

There is nothing easy about mounting a race seat. There is also nothing easy about finding one that fits. It either does or it doesn't. There's no middle ground, as modding plastic seats is not very easy or adviseable to any great degree. You need to try a seat first before you buy. The idea is to improve safety, and you won't if it doesn't fit you.

The plastic head "restraint" seats are fairly minimal as far as apperture (door opening) intrusion. They are also a bit minimal in restaint as well. My main gripe with them is that it does not make any sense to me to have containment of the head, but only shoulder wings for torso retainment. Holding the head in place while allowing the shoulders to slip laterally is not a good scenario.

In any event, the key to a head containment seat is to make sure the head fences are at the right height. The top of the fence should be at the tip of your nose ideally. This will catch as much of your head as possible without restricting your side vision. "Window seats" have some advantage here, as they catch the top and bottom of the helmet, and so driver height can vary a bit more.

Unlike most salesmen, I've had a lot of experience at getting seats to work. Give a shout if you have any more questions.

jaydubya

John - not sure what you mean by this? In my car the wings make exiting through the window completely impossible. I also had to add a removable steering wheel just to be able to get into / out of the car.

smankow

If you're looking at the Cobra seats, CDOC (rennlist sponsor) sells them, too. I haven't gone to the HANS seat yet, but agree with the fitting.

At our Super Tech in March, CDOC brought several different brands, types to the meeting for us to try. The fitment was very different for taller people as the shoulders didn't fit comfortably in some of the seats.

Steve

chrisp

I purchased through Sube. Great seats and when I dealt with them Sube was very knowledgeable.

Jarez Mifkin

I too have the Recaro PP and am getting ready to upgrade to a halo seat, is there any reason to stick with the Recaro brand at this point to be able to use the same sliders and mounts as the PP?

RedlineMan

Hey;

The plastic seats in general do not have as big a head "fence" as other solutions. That said, any seat with head containment will make the aperture tighter for sure.

The best way to mitigate this is to have a seat on sliders that you can slip back to ease ingress/egress.

Things you need to consider, for sure.