FAQ
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What seat fits my year, make, and model?
None of the seating manufacturers produce anything like an application guide specifying which of their seats fit a particular application. Therefore, it is necessary for the buyer to do some basic measuring to ensure that a particular seat will fit their application.
To that end, we provide detailed seat dimensions for every seat we offer. Regardless of the size of your vehicle (but especially in smaller cars) it is essential that you compare the room you have available to the dimensions of the seat you choose.
Once you find a seat that will fit, in most cases we can provide you with a bracket that will allow that seat to be a direct- fit into your specific year, make and model.
How do I measure the available seat space in my vehicle?
We recommend doing this with the stock seat still in the car. It is usually best to take a least three measurements: One between the console and the door panel at the front or rear of the seat base (whichever is tighter), one between the console and the door panel at the lower lumbar area, and one at the shoulder level.
Instead of stretching the measuring tape across the available space, find the center of the existing seat and then measure outward in both directions. For example, you may measure from the center of the seat to the door panel and get 12 inches, but when you measure between the center of the seat and the console you get 11 inches. Instead of noting "23 inches", double the smaller of the two measurements (22 inches.) Likewise, when you measure up at the shoulder area, take the measurement from the center of the seat out to the door glass and double it. These give you some pretty solid ideas of how big a seat you can accomodate.
What is wrong with installing a fixed-back seat in my standard-cab pickup?
Fixed-back seats tend to have a good amount of "layback" angle. In a standard-cab pickup this puts the headrest up against the back window and generally pushes the bottom of the seat too close to the steering wheel, particularly for taller drivers or when mounted in mini- trucks. A reclining seat will be restricted to very little layback angle, but at least it will usually fit in the space provided.
What does it take to install a side-mount seat in my car or truck?
Racing Seats come in two basic mounting style: Bottom-mount (where the bolt holes for mounting are underneat the seat) and side-mount (where the bolt holes for mounting are underneath the seat.
To install a side-mount seat seat, one starts with a side-mount bracket. It is generally best to use a side-mount bracket from the same manufacturer that made your sidemount seat. This gives you what you need to mount the seat to a relatively flat surface.
But in most cases, you are not mounting to anything close to a flat surface. That being the case, it is best to add a custom floor bracket that is made specifically for the year-make-model of vehicle into which you are installing the seat. You can do so with a set of sliders between the side-mount and floor bracket, or without. Note that in some cases drilling may be required, but normally this is not necessary and, when it is necessary, it is generally a pretty straight-forward process.
Sparco floor brackets have two places to mount sliders. One is narrower, and lines the silders up with the holes on a bottom-mounted seat. The other is wider, so that the sidemount can bolt on the outside of the seat and then into the wider-mounted sliders.
Corbeau custom floor brackets are pre-drilled with only one set of holes, suitable for the bottom-mount seat. Corbeau will drill a second set of holes when a bottom-mount bracket is ordered with sidemount brackets. In the event that you have a Corbeau bracket that was purchased without the wider set of holes for the sidemounts, it is usally easy for a competent mechanic to identify the location for and drill the required holes. Note that if you are spread the sliders apart to accomodate a sidemount seat it is also necessary to slightly widen (bend) the handle to fit the increased space between the two sliders.
What is the difference between single and double-locking sliders?
Quite some years ago, Corbeau brackets came standard with single-locking sliders, that is, sliders that locked on only one side. More recently, Corbeau changed their policy and now they only offer double-locking sliders, just like the other bracket manufacturers that we offer. The only difference now is that Corbeau custom-fit brackets normally include silders. The other brands do not.
I see that some seats offer "Seat Shaving". What is that?
In general, aftermarket seats are going to sit higher than the stock seats that came in the vehicle. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the aftermarket seat has better padding that hasn't been compressed over many years of use. Second, the factory seat has the brackets built into the seat, and that typically allows them to sit a few inches shorter. In general, you can expect that most aftermarket seats are going to sit a good inch higher than stock
On many of their seats, Corbeau offers an option called "Seat Shaving". In doing this, Corbeau removes the bottom foam from the seat, cuts about an inch off the bottom (flat) side of the foam, and re-installs it into the seat. This puts the seat height roughly an inch lower, or about where the factory seat height was. Seat shaving is not available in any of Corbeau's Suspension or fixed-back seats. Seat shaving is special order, and makes that seat ineligible for return.
I am 6 feet + tall, and wear a helmet to road-race my Miata. Help!
Seat shaving it not going to be enough to keep your head vertical and out of the head liner. Be sure to use our filters to identify a seat with a shorter seat base height. Then, we recommend that you use a sidemount-style seat. This allows the sliders to be mounted outside the seat so that the bottom can be placed as low to the floor pan as possible. If you are expecially challenged, it is possible that you are going to have to do away with the bottom-mount bracket entirely and have a fabricator modify the floor pan so that you can mount the seat without either slider or bottom-mount.
How long until my order ships?
Please expect that it will take as much as three business days to compile and ship your order. As soon as it is apparent that it will not be possible for us to ship within our normal timeframe, we make every effort to notify the customer of the expected delay. We always provide tracking as soon as we receive it, which may be the day after the order ships. Always be sure to check your spam folder if you don't receive a tracking number or other notification, as tracking numbers tend to be misrouted that way.
