How did you/do you find your ideal seating position?

Like a lot of GRMers, I have a few vehicles I rotate through, all for different "things". 

One area that I seem to always struggle with is finding/refinding a comfortable but effective seating position if a new car is purchased, or if the seat is moved (other driver, repairs, etc.), or if I hurt myself on my mountain bike. 

My gut reaction is, "well, find what's comfortable", but over some time, that position may not prove to be the most effective position for line of sight, pedal/shifter/wheel control, etc. 

For MTBs, I have a very specific formula that I've cataloged that is my preferred distance from the pedals to the saddle, height differential between bars and saddle, and true reach to the centerline of the bars. It's easy, and if I purchase a new bike, frame, anything, I can revert back to those dimensions and have a perfect (or close to perfect) fit right out of the gate. 

I'm talking daily drivers here, but it's likely there are some tools from track cars that could apply. 

It seems like a game of trial and error with a near infinite number of end results due to tilt/telescopic wheels, seat height alteration front and rear, seat base slide, seat back tilt, etc, where there could be a "perfect" fitment just a button click away that you may never find. 

So, do you have a baseline setup? And how did you get there? How do you translate this setup to other vehicles? 

Every car I have ever driven places the steering wheel too far away once I've gotten the seat to peddle distance perfect. I need a telescoping wheel or at least a couple of inch spacer because I don't like sitting so upright. 

According to Leonardo da Vinci, the perfectly proportioned man's arm span is equal to his height. My wingspan is 6'-0" although my height is only 5'-10" so I don't know why it should be a problem (I guess I should be 6'-0" tall, but thanks for smoking with me in your womb mom.) 

Wikipedia.org: Vitruvian Man

This is what I teach my DE students.

Get in and get your butt all the way back in the seat. Put your right foot on the brake and push it ALL the way to the floor. Your knee should still have a bend to it and your foot should be pressing the pedal using the ball of your foot.  Not your toes. If you're pointing your toes you could slip over the top of the pedal. Adjust the lower cushion as needed. If you have adjustable thigh support bring it up to support the thigh.

Then, grab the steering wheel at 3 and 9. Your hands should be at or below the height of your shoulders, with a bend at the elbows. Adjust the the seat back so you can't curl your shoulders forward in a slouch.

It will feel awkward at first. Because you're not used to sitting this way. Eventually it becomes natural.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

^ he's right you know.gif

I generally have my daily adjusted like my track car.

Kinematically speaking, you have much greater control pulling down than lifting up with your arm.  What we try to teach DE students is that you'll get less fatigued and have finer control with the hands equally bent at 9&3 where you can reach past 90° without having to shuffle.  A good way to test this is to set your wrists on the top of the wheel when you're fully belted in.

I like manual seats - forward, back, tilt back up or down.  Electric seats make me nuts with the choices - too many - Lincoln Continental- 30 way power seats?  
 

With clutch in, bottom of thigh just touching seat cushion. Wrist at top of wheel or elbow on armrest and still grasping at 9 oclock. Sadly most new cars can't achieve this and if they do, your gauges will be blocked by the wheel or your hands.

Datsun240ZGuy said:

I like manual seats - forward, back, tilt back up or down.  Electric seats make me nuts with the choices - too many - Lincoln Continental- 30 way power seats?  
 

30 is a lot but most manual seats don't have enough and usually some adjustment is fixed in a bad spot. I've found the ability to adjust the angle of the seat base independently to be super important to my comfort.

In my normal people car SUV I'm pretty much always fiddling with the seat because the steering wheel doesn't extend enough and my desired compromise between not sitting straight up and my arms not being dead straight constantly seems to change daily.

It helps to start out with a car that is naturally comfortable for you; while a particular vehicle may have seats that other people love, it doesn't mean they'll work for you.  I have e28 and e30 BMWs, both with the factory sport seats and I've found they fit me better than any other car I've driven.  Having said that, if I'm on a long drive I'll occasionally make minor adjustments, just so I'm not locked in one position for too long - maybe move the seat forward or back one notch, or adjust the backrest a little, or move the bolster on the front that goes below my knees.  I always did the same thing with my office chair - move it up or down a little, adjust the backrest a little, or whatever during the day.  It doesn't have to be (and probably shouldn't be) anything drastic, just enough.

It depends what I'm in, but I generally like to sit very upright. I'm hideously misshapen being round with short limbs my seat backs are usually tipped a bit forward. I like my legs stretched out some to keep my knees comfortable and the wheel fairly close in the corvette, a little further away in the Jeep. In a truck or bus I usually have the seat base full of air so it's pretty much chair height and the wheel mostly flat.  I'm told it looks uncomfortable but I've never had an issue. 

I swear the average person doesn't have average proportions.

I like to be just high enough to see over the hood. Close enough to the pedals that my knees don't lock on the brake or gas. Very upright seating position with the rear of the seat bottom lower than the front by only a few inches. I aim to grasp the steering wheel such that I am comfortably pulling down on it at 9 and 3.

One of our cars has an electric seat that offers fore/aft and tilt. It is joyous for getting the position just right when we switch between like 8 drivers.

I like to place the seat as low as it can go, then scoot my butt forward in the seat cushions butt pocket to get a nice slouch for my lower back.  Ideal is to be able to pull my left leg back to where my calf touches the seat, so my knee is the same height as the center of the steering wheel. (Close to the turn signal switch obvs)  Normal driving position has knees bent at about a 90 degree angle while on the accelerator and dead pedal.  Seat back placement is so that an outstretched arm places my wrist on top of the steering wheel.

If the car is laid out so the steering wheel is so high off of the floor that the knee/steering wheel attangement cannot be arranged, I'll never find a comfortable driving position because it's just too damned upright, and I'll need a different car.

Funny thing, I drive one extreme and got to sit in the other extreme at a recent event...

My foot is on the gas pedal, you step down on the gas, it's a vertical motion.

So, coming from that...  Optimize feel and control. Don't operate at an extreme of your range of motion. Arms and legs shouldn't be fully outstretched, you won't have leverage. Making sure you feel secure in the car pays huge dividends. 

I have always found that many people overlook ergonomics and that it does matter to overall performance. 

It's also related to why I'm ripping the fiberglass seat back out of my car soon and pouring or doing a bead seat in my car.

(Small plug, the sprint car guy is converting it to turn both ways with the goal of doing Pikes Peak Hillclimb. The YouTube channel is on the car in the picture, check it out!)

Generally,

1. Seat as low as possible.
2. Move forward until I can easily push all pedals to the floor with a slightly bent leg.
3. Adjust tilt of lower cushion so I have a comfortable tilt that will slide me into the back of the seat and not contract too much with leg extended.
4. adjust the back angle until my wrist can rest on the top of the wheel with my shoulder fully back.
5. If I have a telescoping column I'll extend it so I can get a little more lean in than step 4 gives me.

Probably some fine tweaking after that, but It gets me in a generally good position.

I hate feeling high up and tippy so I drop the seat as low as it can go. Then because of my back/shoulder issues and tendency to hunch forward, to properly adjust the distance I move my seat closer and closer to the wheel until - with my arms locked straight in place - my shoulders are jammed as far back in the seat as they can go. That's not how I drive, of course, but it's a rule of thumb that keeps me from unconsciously hunching forward to steer. 
When racing I slide it just a bit closer to have even better control and visibility. 
 

But man, with my bum knee that I need to routinely stretch, it's hard to find a wheel that comes close enough to me while keeping the pedals far enough away. 

Every car I've ever been in with a telescoping wheel, I have it extended as much as possible. It often still not enough for good hand placement (wrist crease on top of wheel with arms fully extended).  So I usually have to cheat a bit by making the seat more upright than I would otherwise prefer. 

Once I started adjusting seats for track driving, I started to realize that it's usually the best position for all driving. It gives you the best use of your muscles and permits fine motor control. 

I start with my legs.

i adjust the seat so the balls of my feet reach the floor ,past the pedals,with a slight bend.Butt back in the seat.

With clutch pedal down all the way the above gives me the bend I like in my legs.

Im not a big seat tilt guy but I like my arms ,with my hands at 3/9 my elbows are about an inch off my torso.

If I can,I prefer my helmet not to be hitting the headliner,but for autocross I like to be a bit higher than normal driving.

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

Same on the wheel adjustment. Both cars have it out as far as it will go. I might have wonky proportions. 
 

I also put the seat as low as it will go. I push the clutch down and slide the seat until my knee is just bent. Then adjust recline to kinda upright and then adjust the wheel. Typically the next step is pulling out the wheel as far as it will go and then pushing the seat forward a little more. I prefer wheel control over pedals and I'm willing to scrunch my legs slightly to that end. 

My Boxster is particularly challenging. I'm tall enough and far enough back that my head can contact the roll bar. So I have to cheat my seat forward and more upright than I would like to try and minimize that. This leaves me a little squished. It works but if someone adjusted everything I would be pissed to have to put it all back.