3" More Legroom: Tall Person's Pedal Mods

[Chococar]

I have finally finished my pedal mods after six stages of development with the accelerator pedal and two with the brake pedal. It has given me 3”+ more legroom when my foot is on the accelerator and provides appropriate heel and toe relationship between the accelerator and brake pedals. I love it!

Here’s a photo looking from the side of the final arrangement.

Here’s what I did to the accelerator pedal:
Stage 1: adjust accelerator pedal to lowest position possible per factory adjustment procedure. (in shop manual and several EliseTalk write-ups).
Stage 2: replace accelerator cable bracket with custom bracket and adjust accelerator pedal so that it touches the floor at WOT. This provides a little more than half of the total benefit. See my write-up at http://www.elisetalk.com/forums/show...ighlight=pedal
Stage 3: remove the factory bolt-on accelerator pedal extension/cover and adjust accelerator pedal so that it touches the floor at WOT.
Stage 4: cut off the bottom of the accelerator pedal and adjust so that it touches the floor at WOT. (see photo)
Stage 5: fabricate and bolt on accelerator pedal cover that relocates accelerator cable and return spring to the right by 3.5” so that it no longer interferes with my shoe. This requires fabricating a new accelerator cable bracket that bolts to the underside of the dash. (see photos)
Stage 6. lower the accelerator cable attachment point on the pedal to provide greater leverage and reduced pedal travel, lowering the pedal position at idle. I made three possible attachment points when I made the pedal cover to facilitate experimentation with different amounts of leverage.

The following photo shows my shoe on the accelerator pedal in the normal driving position. You can see why I had to relocate the cable to the right to avoid interfering with my size 14 speed cats. You can also see the new accelerator cable bracket installed, and why it was required to align with the new position of the accelerator cable.

Note that at each stage, the cable needs to be adjusted for WOT at the engine compartment bracket and the pedal needs to be adjusted for idle position at the pedal box.

Brake pedal mods are noted in the following posting.

I'll be at the GGLC Laguna Seca track day on Feb. 20, in case any of you other tall people will be there and would like to check it out. That is, if I can solve my strange electrical problem by then...

[Chococar]

To complement the accelerator pedal modifications, I did the following mods to the brake pedal:

Stage 1: adjust brake pedal to lowest position possible per factory adjustment procedure. I was able to drop the pedal 1.25” this way.
Stage 2: cut off nose of clevis to provide greater range of adjustment and lower brake pedal further to achieve ideal heel and toe position. (see photo)

[Buz]

Very nicely done! How much adjustment is there on each pedal without any major mods?

[NtflBlueLiz]

Choco, Thanks for this post. What about the clutch though? The clutch is still going to be in the stock position, it would be nice to find a way to lower it and make it even with the brake pedal but I can see that this is going to be a hard mod to do because the clutch at the current configuration needs to be pressed all the way against the forward bulkhead so if you move the clutch pedal there wouldn't be enough travel to fully actuate the clutch. Maybe it would take a change of clutch reservoir to be able to do this?

[Chococar]

Buz,

There's about 1" adjustment down on both the accelerator and brake pedal without any fabrication work. See attached photo of brake pedal lowered as far as possible before I had the clevis machined.

NtflBlueLiz,

Yeah, I know. I haven't started to think about the clutch pedal yet. It's lowest on my priority and may not ever both with it. Maybe you can figure it out and let the rest of us know, ok?

Thanks,

Joe

[Chococar]

Oh, I forgot to mention that the first pedal mod I did was to remove the dead pedal. See http://www.elisetalk.com/forums/show...ght=dead+pedal

That makes it easy to rest my left foot on the fire wall when not using the clutch.

[NtflBlueLiz]

Originally Posted by Chococar

Buz,

There's about 1" adjustment down on both the accelerator and brake pedal without any fabrication work. See attached photo of brake pedal lowered as far as possible before I had the clevis machined.

NtflBlueLiz,

Yeah, I know. I haven't started to think about the clutch pedal yet. It's lowest on my priority and may not ever both with it. Maybe you can figure it out and let the rest of us know, ok?

Thanks,

Joe

Choco,
I wish I was more mechanically inclined to do it myself but I'm going to try to see if I work with a shop on the solution. Fear not!

[carl]

Joe,i think when we do the alignment on sat we cut a 6"X9" hole in the floor and pick up another half foot of drop for the pedals. What do you think? I'll buy a new blade for my sawzall. All kidding aside looks great. carl

[Chococar]

Fred,

Are you in Los Angeles? I'm in Santa Barbara. Let me know if you want to sit in my car before commissioning a project. And I do have sketches of many of the parts.

Carl,

You laugh, but I've done things almost that severe on other cars. Next time you're over, I'll show you the details of the pedal mods on my Eleven.

--Joe

[Dave]

That's some great ingenuity and engineering work...nice job!

[NtflBlueLiz]

Originally Posted by Chococar

Fred,

Are you in Los Angeles? I'm in Santa Barbara. Let me know if you want to sit in my car before commissioning a project. And I do have sketches of many of the parts.

Carl,

You laugh, but I've done things almost that severe on other cars. Next time you're over, I'll show you the details of the pedal mods on my Eleven.

--Joe

Joe,
I'm extremelly far from you: Fort Lauderdale, FL but appreciate the invite nonetheless

[Chococar]

Too bad. I misread your location "la la land".

[Brent Bauman]

Choco,
I just read this thread for the first time with the link from Phantoms thread. I've done a similar mod to my pedels with one addition. I made a 1/4" spacer plate between the clutch master cylinder and the firewall. This enabled me to bring the clutch pedal down even with the brake pedal. The "clutch pedal stop mod" is no longer needed since I shortened the clutch throw from it's starting position.

[Chococar]

Originally Posted by Brent Bauman

Choco,
I just read this thread for the first time with the link from Phantoms thread. I've done a similar mod to my pedels with one addition. I made a 1/4" spacer plate between the clutch master cylinder and the firewall. This enabled me to bring the clutch pedal down even with the brake pedal. The "clutch pedal stop mod" is no longer needed since I shortened the clutch throw from it's starting position.

Nice! Why is the spacer plate better than the pedal stop mod?

Thanks,

Joe

[LBC111]

I really need to do this!!

[Chococar]

Go ahead!

You're not so far from Santa Barbara. Do you want to get together some time and sit in my car?

Thanks,

Joe

[carl]

Originally Posted by Chococar

Nice! Why is the spacer plate better than the pedal stop mod?

Thanks,

Joe

Joe, you and Brent kill me if you guys teamed up you could manufacture your own car. I might add it would be well engineered. carl

[Brent Bauman]

Originally Posted by Chococar

Nice! Why is the spacer plate better than the pedal stop mod?

Thanks,

Joe

I did it to space the pedal further away from the seat. Similar to lowering the brake pedal. On my 05 it was adjustable to a point but now w/ the spacer the original clutch stop is in the right place in the pedal travel and it creates more leg room. even though I don't need it, I'm 5'10"

[Chococar]

Hey Brent,
I'm going to be in Fullerton next week. Could we get together and you can show me your mod?
(I won't have my Elise with me on this trip though, so I won't be able to reciprocate.)
Thanks,
Joe

[Brent Bauman]

I should be around all week. I'll pm you my #