In reply to STALIZE :
sure. will get some when i have it out this weekend! the true eye sore is the B-pillar area, the structure that used to latch the door and hold up the 'vert top. i will be cropping all of it off to land the roll cage on the frame in that area. replacing what was the B-pillar with a flat plate from the frame to the partition behind the seats.
Please review the headlights - I'm really interested in how they perform.
In reply to jfryjfry :
will do. outward build quality is impressive for $100/pair. i should wire them in today. i did take picks of them mounted yesterday....
took the LS1-KART out for its first public showing. LOL. went to a small cruise in at a local drift car shop. it was definitely a hit and some of the reactions to it were quite comical.
Chatted with someone who seemed very knowledgeable on LS motors. He looked it over, noticed that my block doesnt have an ID stamp on the front passenger side like a OEM block should. which is odd. looking around on google this morning, it appears the only conclusive way to determine whether its GM made or not is by looking at a number on the back of the block, inaccessible installed.
So, what i dubbed LS1-KART, which was already inaccurate with discovery of the Trick-Flow heads, may not even have an LS1 short block. oh darn.
In reply to Go_Gators:
If he was looking on the passengers side, toward the front side, then he mayve had the location mixed up with the top of the block and the bottom of the head. If he was planning to find a cast 3 digit number, he was trying to find the head casting number, which of course doesn't exist on Trick Flows. I believe the casting number for the original heads would've been 853. Did he happen to say that number?
he thought it should have an id number where the water pump bolts on, like this pic i found online. yea, the heads have tric-flows casting numbers.
so, finally got a buddy to take pics to determine cage height. turns out my line of sight with teh top of the windshield frame is a lot closer than i thought. not sure where to go from here to get my helmet inside of the cage, for reference i am not a giant, only 6'1".
if you saw my previous post for the seat brackets you know the seat is already raked back quite a bit and touching the floor in the rear. i do have a 1" thick slider installed, but i would really really like to keep it.
i could possibly add even more of a rake to the seating position.
i could go super high with the main roll bar hoop, but that will look pretty bad.
i could lower the floorboards, but what a nightmare.
i could go full exo-cage on the a-pillar and have the halo above the windshield...
thoughts?
Can you elaborate on what would make the floorboard option a nightmare?
Floorboard, mount the seat hard and halo the cage it the only way to make it full MAD Max.
You could get a more angled seat from kirkey.
In reply to Sparkydog :
floor board appears to be a composite with aluminum skins on both sides. i think its about 1" thick, tthere are steel reinforcements under teh car where the seat bolts in. the entire panel would have to go and i would have to weld in a non-flat sheet....
Remove padding from seat bottom?
I vote for lowering the floor IF... there is enough space beneath it to give you what you want and, IF there is enough steel (around the perimeter of the hole you would have to cut) to be able to tie a DIY floor pan back in.
Related thought - is there a donor car that has the right shape you would need? If so, cut one out at the wrecking yard so as to slightly lessen the fab time. Yes cutting out the hole in the C5, cutting out a donor pan and then patching it in is not trivial - but it sounds like all of the other options have non-trivial consequences too.
I don't see harnesses in that picture, and looking at where the holes in the seatback are I would be willing to bet that properly tight shoulder straps will pull you down a bit. Check with harnesses and go from there? You can also keep reclining the seat until it starts hitting the underside of your legs when you push the pedals.
You look too tall in the seat. Like you shouldn't be that far above the top of it. And, the harness holes are too low relative to your shoulders.
thanks for the inputs! here is a floorboard pic.
i agree i am probably on the tall side for the seat, but a taller seat doesnt solve the head external to roll cage problem, its a totally seperate problem!
today/tomorrow i am going to remove the seat. drill a curiosity hole in the floor to see how thick the composite is in way of the rear mountng stud.
also i think there is about 3/4" between the absolute bottom of the bucket seat and the bottom of the side mount brackets. i could cut the bottom of the side mount brackets off and weld them to the sliders... or... much less desirable, i could weld them directly to the bracket.
if i can get about ~2" lower by modifying the seat/mounts/floor, then i think the additional ~1-2" i am going to have to angle the door hoop at an upward angle to a taller main hoop than i was initially thinking.
In reply to Go_Gators:
Maybe I’m crazy but isn’t the floor aluminum sandwiching wood of some sort?
Get a different seat, remount or mod the heck out of that seat. The floor is the only thing left giving you rigidity and any kind of crash protection, now is not the time to go all "Home -Depot and Pop Rivets". Great progress by the way, saw a C4 cart at the Ocean City MD "Endless Summer" cruise two weeks ago, looked clean and fun, saw it driving on the highway ...
so, taking a closer look at teh floorpan, i think its fibercomposite and were it recesses around the four seat mount studs it is flush with the under car structure. the rest is filled with some sort of insulation. here is the under car view of the aft seat mount stiffener, its flush with the bottom of the frame, so it cannot go lower.
here is my current seat arrangement. side mount set to lowest hole in the rear, 1" thick slider, and highly modified planted seat bracket that rests in teh recess around the seat mount stud. seat is only 2.5" off the recess level, so about 2" off the floorpan.
i think my best option is to recline the seat, for going to use a threaded rod coupler, then eventually modify the bracket (some more). i played around with that. i can recline it back to gain ~1.5" of further head room before it becomes to extreme. then, i will still have to angle the cage up a bit, but only about 2". calling this plan A.
Go_Gators said:
so, finally got a buddy to take pics to determine cage height. turns out my line of sight with teh top of the windshield frame is a lot closer than i thought. not sure where to go from here to get my helmet inside of the cage, for reference i am not a giant, only 6'1".
I have those same seats (well, only one) in my Miata, and had the same height issues at first. There is a ludicrous amount of foam on those seats, but its all just velcroed in place. What I did was remove the forward piece of the seat bottom, and throw it away. Then the other two pieces swapped places; the (very thin) seat back cushion is on the bottom, with the other piece used for lumbar support.
How about bag seat? Create a seat from the floor and back wall the way they do in formula cars?
Try a kirkey 20deg layback seat. They're cheap, sit really low, and have more layback so you don't sit as upright
Also, just bolt the passenger one to the floor so you don't even have to worry about that side.
A Google search of C5 floor pan indicates it's a balsa wood core/ fiberglass sandwich. I also found a few seat install posts and there are some aftermarket options that might give you some ideas.
The cars that I build are low. On my current build it's only 42 inches from the ground to the top of my windshield. (I've built them as low as 39 inches). My frame height with proper suspension geometry is 5 inches. I have my seat set so that my head is below the top of the windshield. To accomplish this I've gone with an aluminum seat with minimal but comfortable padding and laid the seat back. This ends up to be very comfortable to me as laying the seat back helps support my legs. Also, I build the car for me so I put the seat where I want it. I make brackets that allows the rear of the seat, when laid back to be on the floor and supports the front. I don't use sliding seat bases.
For the car with the 39 inch height I made a mold of my backside while sitting and made my own fiberglass seats. I then had thin covers made for them. These were the most comfortable seats I've ever had. I drove that car cross country and a total of 33,000 miles in 18 months.
I believe the correct ride height, ground to bottom of the rockers, is 5.25 to 5.5 inches for a stock C5.
I would do everything I could to get my seating position low but not cut and lower the floor. My opinion only.
In Florida, and most states, the minimum headlight height is 24 inches when measured from the ground to the center of the light. I know in NY I can't get my car registered if I don't have the headlights at this height. I'm having this problem currently in NY as my new body has the headlights lower than that. I'm going to have to jack the suspension up as high as possible or put taller tires on it to go through initial inspection. Once I'm through the initial inspection I'm not to worried about getting stopped. Maybe it's not a problem in FL. I like the looks of your car with the headlights where they're mounted.
Have fun!
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