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How To Get Started
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 12:50 pm
You should fit pretty well, at you're height it is going to depend on the ratio of leg / body length.
We are supposed to adjust for size only with the pedals, they move quite a bit. If you are longer in the body, the seat can becomes a factor.
The car comes with a fiberglass seat or you can get a "custom" Butler aluminum seat. The Butler gives a little more flexibility in seating position, but takes up more space.
I'm 6'6", 220, with long legs, my personal car has a fiberglass seat opened up a little in the hips so I can spread my knees out a little. I have driven a few cars with Butlers, but have yet to find one where I am not making at least some small concession to make up for improper fit.
Best bet, try sitting in different different cars, most people are cool about it.
At 200, you may need either heavy bodywork or a couple lbs of ballast to make minimum weight.

Hard to go wrong with Scott Rettich, he is kind of good at it. :roll:
Dave Harriman
"It looks crazy, I understand. But, we only live once and I am going to give it a good try." - Alex Zanardi

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 9:07 pm
My height is due to my long legs more so than long in the torso. This definately was not an asset when I was involved with kart racing. It really didnt help much for road racing motorcycles either. Dave, if your 6'6 I'm sure I can find a set up that works for me.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:57 am
dave wrote:You should fit pretty well, at you're height it is going to depend on the ratio of leg / body length.
We are supposed to adjust for size only with the pedals, they move quite a bit. If you are longer in the body, the seat can becomes a factor.
The car comes with a fiberglass seat or you can get a "custom" Butler aluminum seat. The Butler gives a little more flexibility in seating position, but takes up more space.
I'm 6'6", 220, with long legs, my personal car has a fiberglass seat opened up a little in the hips so I can spread my knees out a little. I have driven a few cars with Butlers, but have yet to find one where I am not making at least some small concession to make up for improper fit.
Best bet, try sitting in different different cars, most people are cool about it.
At 200, you may need either heavy bodywork or a couple lbs of ballast to make minimum weight.

Hard to go wrong with Scott Rettich, he is kind of good at it. :roll:
Question for you, good sir:

I'm about to take the plunge, but have one safety concern. I'm 6'4, 260. The length is mostly leg, the weight is mostly torso. (I'm an odd looking human.) I've been in two SRFs now, both with stock seats and the pedals all the way at the nose. Fit was generally fine, BUT no matter how I shifted my legs around, the bottom of the dashboard rested flush against my upper thighs.

I know that, per the rulebook, I can't shove the whole thing upwards, can't bend the last couple inches back to give me some clearance, etc. I'm 98% sure I could glue on a half inch or so of dense foam to give me a little protection. But as a guy whose been through a few rodeos and CERTAINLY has it worse than me:

1) what do you do to protect your thighs from damage upon driver error?
2) it seems far more dangerous than, say, resting a knee against a padded piece of cage, because when energy starts being transferred, there's plenty of places for the bent leg to go. No matter what the nature of impact, energy is going to be traveling down through the top of my thighs, and the only damage I want to be doing to my femoral arteries is at Whataburger on the way back from the track. Assumming you've copped a reasonable hit at some point, how did your thighs hold up?
3) also assuming that, because of your frame, you're wedged in at one or two other unusual places too - what do you do for comfort on sessions that run more than 15-20 minutes? Foam? Subconsciously moving things around / flexing / etc. on straightaways?

Basically, if you could be my Giant Obi Wan and teach a big man how to make these cars fit, I would really appreciate it. (With an emphasis on the thigh vs. dashboard issue that is giving me nightmares.)
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:36 pm
Off the top of my head, I'd suggest first moving the dashboard up and towards you (slide it along the roll bar tubes). That will raise it a bit (the tubes go up as they come towards you) and move it up higher above your thighs, limiting the possibility for you to have contact with it in a shunt. Then you can adjust the height of your steering column and the location of the wheel towards/away from you to your taste.
Let us know if that helps (if you haven't tried it yet).
RacerX
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User avatar
Needs a Life!!!
Needs a Life!!!
Posts: 1200
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:38 am
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Chassis:
068 415
Facebook Page:
http://facebook.com/HSERacing
PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:16 pm
Long legs are the story of my life, I have always managed to deal with small car, sometimes with my knees outside the steering wheel.
You can move the dash around quite a bit and still stay within the rules. I use a FG seat with the hip area opened up about an inch. You definitely want to cover the sharp edges of the dash. But I have heard about more people with shorter legs getting beat up by the steering column mount than legs hitting the dash.

The biggest thing, IMHO is having your butt all the way down and back in the seat bucket. If the top of your hips are too tight and compress against the sides, you won't really settle in. At 260, it may help to split the whole seat and open it up a little (I'm told I have a skinny butt).

I do have a Butler seat that works for me, but the cars are rentals and a Butler that is slightly off tends to be a lot worse than a f/g seat.

Dave
Dave Harriman
"It looks crazy, I understand. But, we only live once and I am going to give it a good try." - Alex Zanardi

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 11:48 pm
Thanks so much for the quick replies from both of you - especially interested in the Butler Seat comment, because I had just written it off based on a couple other folks noting that they ended up with a tighter fit in them....

Again, I know precisely jack squat here, and there's only one way to find out. (Well, two, counting the SRF community, here and at large.)

Thanks again - SUPER helpful.
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