Purchased Mog Seats

[lotusmark]

Pics of my Mogs.

[Conan]

Originally Posted by lotusmark

Pics of my Mogs.

cool! That's a SERIOUS setup. Where did you get the "ELISE" shoulder strap pads?

[lotusmark]

Originally Posted by Conan

cool! That's a SERIOUS setup. Where did you get the "ELISE" shoulder strap pads?

Came with the car.

[lancer360]

Here is another update and more photos. I have the drivers side seat mounted! I still have a little work cleaning up some rough edges on the bracket though. I also have a plan laid out that should allow me to run a sizeable bar under the seat for the submarine belts to connect to and the bar will be mounted to the seat rails so it will move with the seat. This will be very important as my wife is shorter than I am and moving the seat forward would make the geometry for the submarine belts unacceptable. The seats are more reclined than the stock seats so my legs are a little closer to the pedals to get my arms right, but it works for me. For autocross I might stick a small pillow behind my back to get a more upright seating position though.

These photos show the S111 4tress bar installed, but I'm not sure that I will keep it. I think it is too high with the current seat angle, and I cannot raise the seat without my head hitting the hard top. The seats fit me perfectly and my shoulders line right up with the harness holes in the seat. My wife is shorter so her shoulders are below the holes so I will most likely trim the holes out bigger to make sure the harness does not rub on the seat edge. Fluke is sending me a couple of meters of the edge trim that is used on the seats so I can dress it up once I cut the slots.

I did have to slightly trim the seat where it comes close to the center console, but it was only about 1/4" and took about 5 minutes with a Dremel. I had to trim the bottom front edge of the seat also to allow for the slider bar to be lifted for seat adjustment. Again, not a big deal, just a few minutes with the Dremel to remove about 1/4" of material.

I have chosen the Schroth Hybrid II belts since the have a unique way of attaching the sub belts to the cam-lock without a t-bar. This should make them more comfortable. I have not decided on how I am going to mount the lap belts. One option is to mount them to one of the extra holes in the side of the seat bracket, but it is 0.2" thick aluminum so I don't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about it being strong enough. I will be visiting with a fabricator to make the sub bar for me so I might be able to strengthen the bracket at that time. The other option is to go back to the rear chassis member, but that makes the lap belt angle almost 45 degrees for me and even shallower for my wife. This is not very desirable and potentially dangerous.

I also just received my new shifter and handbrake boot from the Lotus Trim Shop. Verdict is still out though, as the wife doesn't like it, but maybe she will come around. I thought it needed a splash of color with all of the black, but I might go back to the original black ones. I'm still waiting on my CF A/C surround to show up. It should be here any day now. Enough talking for now, here are some more photos. Let me know what you think.

[lancer360]

[spider]

Do you sit lower in the seat than in the stock seat? Thanks.

[lancer360]

Yes, the stock seats are lower by about 1/2 to 3/4" You can get the seat a lot lower if you permanently mount it though.

[lancer360]

I met with a fabricator today and reviewed my initial plan. They had some good suggestions. They are going to mock up a couple of pieces in the morning and I will head over there in the afternoon to go over a few things. Once we iron out the exact plan they will make the pieces for me and let me take them home and do some test fitting before we drill the final holes and secure all of the pieces together. I'll post some pictures of the mock up. I am also sending the pictures to HMS to get Schroth's buy-in on the mounts being acceptable. When everything is complete, the goal is to have a structurally sound (i.e. not securing the sub straps to paper thin sheet metal) 6-point mounting system that is fixed for the passenger and is mounted on the slider for the driver. This way the geometry does not change for those of us who have two driver cars. This will incorporate the SYS pack from S111 to insure that the seat is secure to the car frame since the brackets are an integral part of the harness mounts.

[MyElise]

Did you ever get the harness mounting instructions?

[lancer360]

I got a partial set of instructions and some photos, and in my opinion it was a joke. The seat has two sets of mounting point, side mount and bottom mount. For our cars we use the side mount holes. Their "plan" was to take the sub straps back to the bottom rear seat mounting holes. These only use an M8 bolt which is too small in my opinion and it is threaded into the bottom plastic shell of the seat using a threaded insert on the inside of the shell. Not exactly confidence inspiring.

They also let me know that if the car has to pass an safety inspection at a race event then they mount the sub straps to the sheet metal floor of the car with a backing plate. Again not very confidence inspiring. The backing plate only keeps the bolt from tearing out, it does not prevent the entire floor from buckling.

Needless to say, I am working with a fabrication shop that makes race seats for many of the Nascar teams and numerous other race series to come up with a seat bracket design that will be capable of withstanding the required forces per the Schroth manual as well as maintaining the correct geometry.

[MyElise]

Originally Posted by lancer360

They also let me know that if the car has to pass an safety inspection at a race event then they mount the sub straps to the sheet metal floor of the car with a backing plate. Again not very confidence inspiring. The backing plate only keeps the bolt from tearing out, it does not prevent the entire floor from buckling.

This is exactly my worry. Which is why I am looking for the detail of a "through the floor with backing plate" mounting system. I thought that the Lotus design had spacers which fit inside the floor to add rigidity. I would be very interested is seeing the design your fab shop comes up with.

[jim-clayton]

I installed a 1/4" thick aluminum plate on the underside of the car. I copied the idea from someone on E-talk. The plate is about 14" x 40".
I have pictures somewhere. I have a 6 point system. The sub and lap belts bolt through the plate. I'll try to dig up the photos.

[lancer360]

Here are some shots from Solidworks showing the passenger side. The seat is modeled very crudely so please don't scrutinize it to closely. All of the mounting brackets are accurate though. We are going to mock up some of the pieces and I will take them home for test fitting before we drill the final holes and complete the welding. I'm heading over to the shop this afternoon to check out some pieces for the drivers seat which is much tougher to do. Once we have a plan, I will make a model and drawing of the components.

The red bar is for the sub belts and is made from 1" 0.095 DOM high strength tubing. The bar in yellow is the same with a solid bung welded in each end with a drilled and tapped hole for the eyebolt to thread into. The yellow piece is mainly to stiffen the aluminum seat bracket so it does not fail due to the bending load imposed by the eyebolt. The bracket will be secured to the car chassis using the SYS pack from S111. Once I receive the kit, I will install a minimum of grade 8, 7/16-20UNF bolts if they are not already that big.

[lancer360]

Well, I'm really close to being done. The passenger seat is fully assembled and ready to go in, but I need a second set of hands and my wife went to bed already. I guess I will tackle it in the morning. I need her to sit in the seat so I can get the sub straps set to the right length as there is no room for the adjustable kind. Once the length is set I can bolt it into the car. I screwed up and gave the wrong dimension to the welder for one of the braces for the drivers seat, so I will have to wait until Monday to get that one fixed. HMS screwed up and only shipped me one set of sub belts so I won't have the second set until Monday anyway. On the plus side, I got the removable steering wheel installed! I will put everything in the car tomorrow and get some good photos. Should look really good with the CF seats, center console, and A/C surround.

[lancer360]

Ok, its all done (almost)!!! I have everything installed, but I will have to pull the driver side seat one last time when I get the new brace from the fabricator, this time with the right dimension.

Here are the shots of the underside of the passenger seat. The braces are 1" 0.095" steel tubing with a bung welded in each end. The bung was necked down and goes 1" down inside the tubing. The sub bar strap has a 3/8" tapped hole held in by a grade 8 fastener on each end. The rear bar is for the lap belts and is the same construction except it has a 7/16 fine thread hole in each end and the harness eyebolts screw directly into it. This takes the bending load off the aluminum plate and makes the assembly much stronger. The seat brackets are then attached to the car using the SYS pack from S111.

[lancer360]

Here is the completed installation of the Mog seats, Schroth Hybrid II harness, carbon fiber center console, carbon fiber A/C surround, and removable steering wheel.

[lancer360]

And some more photos



And a front shot

[lancer360]

For those who have or are considering a 6-point harness for the Elise, I highly recommend looking at the Hybrid II from Schroth. I went back and forth with Schroth on it, but we were able to put together an installation that worked well. If you do order the Hybrid II, make sure you get the ones with the non-adjustable sub belt, as there is just no room under our cars for it. It hasn't been a big deal not having the adjuster for my wife and I as the shoulder belts when tightened are able to make it tight enough for both of us. The big benefit to the Hybrid II is there is no extra hardware to plug into the cam lock for the sub belts. The subs just slip over the lap belts. It makes it very comfortable not having that metal t-bar right at your crotch. I hope everyone likes it as much as I do!

[mike325ci]

Very nice writeup and photos!

Actually, I don't actually know how they are going about doing this, but I ordered my car set up for a 6-point belt from Lotus. With safety stuff, I don't like to take chances, so I figured they would know best how to take care of the sub belt mounting mount.

I guess I won't really know how exactly they did it until my car comes in the summer... Did anyone else here order their car with a setup for the sub belt? If I'm the first, I guess I'll have to post some detailed photos when the car comes...

The Hybrid II's sub belt feature does sound like a nice option... I'll have to ask for that model...

Cheers!

[lancer360]

Make sure you post all of the details on your harness set up when you get your car. My understanding was that Lotus wouldn't even sell a seat from the trim shop in the US with the slot in the bottom of the seat because of liability concerns. I'm really interested if Lotus now has a 6-point set up for our cars without needing a full roll cage like the cup cars.