SEIW Cabin Space

[dvd8n]

Hi there, I've just been to see a factory built SEIW 1.6 today. 

 

I'm 6'2" and fitted in the cabin.  Only just but I fitted.

 

But the problem is my wife is only 5' tall; she just couldn't work the controls.

 

One thought that I had was to swap the 3" harnesses to inertia reels for a bit more user friendliness. It's this feasible? Would it cost a lot?

 

I was also wondering about getting some more travel from the seat runners somehow. Has anybody tried this?  I did notice that there's a really inconvenient chassis rail in the way.

 

Does anyone have any other ideas? Unfortunately I can't be doing anything that would rob me of any leg room.

 

David

[Euan Hoosearmy]

Seat runners would help but may raise the seat height putting your head in a more exposed position..

 

I'm 6,4 and my wife is 5,7. She uses a cushion behind her to move her forward enough to work the pedals.

 

I did get some Westfield Race seats with a runner on the drivers side. However they only fit very slim drivers.

 

Are you planning on going to Malvern? There will be plenty of examples there to look at and if you ask nicely try for size..

[dvd8n]

Thanks for replying.

 

We tried a cushion but unfortunately it didn't help enough.  The 4 point harnesses seemed to make things worse (I'm not sure why).

 

With the runners that were fitted, the lever was fouling the chassis rail, and in addition they were running out of travel.  Again I'm not sure why; either the lever was hitting the chassis rail, or the runners were, or the seat was, or the runners were just running out of travel themselves.  Or more than one of these.

 

Malvern's a long way from Scotland so for that and family reasons I'll not be there

 

David

[Mark (smokey mow)]

51 minutes ago, dvd8n said:

One thought that I had was to swap the 3" harnesses to inertia reels for a bit more user friendliness. It's this feasible? Would it cost a lot?

you could conceivably have both fitted at the same time giving you the option to use either although the swap is relatively simple and not that expensive.

[Ewan]

Just this week I have removed the harnesses from my car and fitted inertia reels. Really quick, easy and cheap. I can now lean forward and use the dashboard switches! (I can forward you details of the inertia belts to buy.)

 

Sounds like your seat runners may have been positioned strangely in the first place, specifically for a previous owner.  It should be possible to make it work for both of you, especially if you have seat back which is adjustable in angle.

[dvd8n]

26 minutes ago, Ewan said:

especially if you have seat back which is adjustable in angle.

 

If the seat backs adjust then we couldn't figure out how to do it.  I must admit that we were surprised.  The seats are the leather option.  I must admit, adjusting the rake of the seatbacks would probably help a lot.

[Ewan]

It’s most likely they are fixed back. But you could easily replace them with a pair of adjustable seats (or even just swap the drivers seat).

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

There's no standard or commonly used Westfield seat that has an adjustable rake in the conventional sense, I'm afraid. There are a few that either have mounting brackets pre-drilled for different angles, but then they don't slide either, or some, like the Sport Turbo, that have spacers in the front between the seat and the sliding base, to get the right angle. A few members over the years have added longer spacers and bolts to get greater rake, I guess you could do the opposite, too.

 

It is a tricky one, and there's not that easy a solution, if temporary things like cushions/supports of some kind won't do it.

 

Fitting inertia reels is very do-able, though the precise process will differ depending on type of body work and age of car.

 

From your original post, I'm wondering if you have the none-lowered floors, ie, the whole floor of the cockpit, steel tubes aside is flat? If that is the case, then the seats are bolted through the aluminium, but underneath, there are two steel straps running side to side, the seats go through these as well, and they're not that wide, so re-positioning the seats isn't so straightforward, without modifying or re-locating the straps, too. It can certainly be done though.

 

I'd definitely recommend coming to the Nat Kit Car show at Malvern, normally, so you can try alternate seat types, but obviously understand the distance issue! Your best alternative otherwise, is to try and get to some more local meets; you won't have anything like the same number of cars in one place, of course, but if you can find a few different seat examples, perhaps you can both try them? (In general, we're a really friendly bunch, that likes nothing more than talking about our cars and demonstrating stuff!!)

 

What you may find, is that some of the styles of seat, like the GRP or Carbon, shell seats, seat you in such a way that you're sort of rotated around slightly, your shoulders and head go further back, while your hips and bum are further forward. This does bring your legs and feet closer in to the pedals, for any given seat position. Of course, because your head and shoulders are further back, reaching the wheel comfortably in the stock position can become impossible, BUT, that bit is really easy to sort out - bolt in spacers for the steering wheel to fine tune it's position are reasonably commonly available at specialists and by mail order, and not too expensive, (certainly compared to car mods).

 

These type of shell seat are also a common mod for taller drivers, as by rotating your body round a tad, they do also get your head a little lower in the car.

[dvd8n]

The car has the lowered floor with the straps.  It therefore has a chassis tube just in front of the seat that some part of the seat or runner mechanism is clonking against.

 

It's a blow that there aren't recliners available.  I take it that something like MX5 seats won't fit?

[Rob Hunter - Club Secretary]

Not much room in the cars for adjustable seats unfortunately....

 

I'd explore using expandable foam, it's what they use in endurance race cars when drivers are of different height and build in the same fixed seat. Might work for you 👍

[Rhett Turner - Black Country AO]

My son also has trouble getting comfortably close to pedals etc and we've wondered about either getting a carting seat insert or even trying using the plastic bag and expanding foam route to make a custom seat insert.

 

Re different seat's it's going to be a measure your cockpit and then compare with seat specifications from the different specialist suppliers. 

 

If you can't reach the pedals and steering wheel comfortably then belts don't really come into play. Inertia vs harness should only really impact on access to switch gear or easing visibility and movement. Switch gear can be move closer and at times I do need to realease my harnesses a little to aid visibility (adjustment ease is key in that case)

 

Good luck with the search.

[Rhett Turner - Black Country AO]

What seats have you tried, this topic is often discussed but normally re tall drivers and different seats will give more space for taller drivers. The opposite is also true. A seat (on runners) that is good for a tall driver is also likely to be not as suitable for a short driver. 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

44 minutes ago, dvd8n said:

The car has the lowered floor with the straps.  It therefore has a chassis tube just in front of the seat that some part of the seat or runner mechanism is clonking against.

 

It's a blow that there aren't recliners available.  I take it that something like MX5 seats won't fit?

 

As far as I know, MX5 seats don't fit - Westfield make a car kit specifically to use as many donor MX5 parts as possible, and seats aren't re-used.

 

The problem is most reclining seats even narrow ones have the recliner controls/mechanism on the side. There just isn't the room in a Westfield to have them there. The padded/upholstered  type seats are such a tight fit, that there's only just space for them to slide forwards and backwards, they'd have very little "swing" to move the back through an arc.

 

The very narrow production car type seats like the various Lotus options, come from mid engined cars, so again, with rear bulkheads, and narrow chassis, they're often a fixed bucket, too, just able to slide forward and back.

 

Are your seats the Sport Turbo?

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

If they are Sport Turbos then you may be able to improve their fit/operation for yourselves,  in a couple of ways:

 

(Excuse the poor phot, couldn't find many with the mechanism showing - note this one isn't exactly the same as the Sport Turbo, though it's made by the same people, the comments still apply)

 

Firstly, many of us take the orange marked adjuster lever off and shorten it - it was designed to use with the seats when they have an optional knee support fitted, so can be quite long - you tend to stand on it a lot quite apart from anything else. From memory, it just slots into the mechanism under the seat, so you just trim those back bits down and re-fit.

 

Secondly, you can see the two front spacer tubes, circled in yellow, these can be removed, and either shortened, or swapped for some slightly shorter length tube and bolts. Obviously, this isn't something that can be quickly changed when swapping drivers, so a bit of experimentation to find a "common" height that works for you both would be needed

[dvd8n]

I'd just like to thank everyone for their help.  It's been great.

 

When my wife tried to drive the car she had three real problems, even with a cushion:

1. The harness needed a huge amount of adjustment to fit.
2. Once strapped in the ignition key under the dash was out of reach so she needed to unstrap and strap on every restart.
3. She was operating the clutch with her stretched out toe and even then not very successfully.

1 and 2 could be addressed by inertia reels.  Or by, as suggested, relocating the ignition.

 

3 just wasn't safe.

 

I don't think that the seats are sport turbos.  This is the car:

 

https://www.wcmotors.co.uk/used-westfield-1600-west-kilbride-ayrshire-4803194

 

It's already way more than I wanted to spend but it is (relatively) local so I thought that it was worth going to see for that reason alone, if only for the experience.  So, it turns out that was wise - there is going to be a fit issue.

 

But now I'm faced with not only justifying an overly expensive toy to my wife, but one she can't drive too 😟  She's actually being very decent about it but that just makes me feel guilty 🤦‍♂️

 

I did wonder about getting something like this:

 

https://www.elap.co.uk/elap-manual-extended-seat-runners/

 

and angling them up at the front so that the seat rides over the chassis tube in front but I don't know if that's feasible.  And will the seat then just foul the narrowing cockpit?

 

David