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    Results 1 to 9 of 9
    1. #1
      Join Date
      May 2008
      Posts
      20

      Corbeau RRS Sportline fitment in '69 Z/28 - need lower slider / bracket setup

      Welcome any ideas on either getting a shop to modify Corbeau's (heavy) double-locking-pin slider/bracket combo for '69 Z/28. I installed the Sportline RRS seat in our Camaro as shown in these pics, but lost roughly 1" of head / helmet room that I'd like to get back by either sectioning the legs of the brackets or trying some other combo you folks have had success with.

      VERY happy with how the seats feel and support during early morning twisty road sorties (along with 12.7:1 ratio 35 lb/in valving from Lee's Power Steering + Hotchkis springs, Del-A-Lum bushings, Addco F/R bars). https://youtu.be/bci7vSePwrY?t=12m5s The "match" of the horizontal pleats is close enough, and saves wear from our original 40K mile seats/foam.

      Also, I welcome ideas on best seat belt or harness setup to use. The car's only likely to autocross a few times/yr, mostly used for early morning drives in the twisties. The stock belts fit OK with some minor interference on Corbeau's adjuster cover that I may trim away. Could be an easy fix if I can just get an outboard belt instead of the current stock retractor/belt combo.



      Thanks in advance for your ideas.


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    2. #2
      Join Date
      Jan 2014
      Location
      Austin, TX
      Posts
      636
      Country Flag: United States
      Please pardon my hijacking of your thread, but would you mind sharing what steering wheel that is? Very sharp! As far as seat height goes, I'm having a similar problem mounting Cobra Stuttgart seats in my '64 Corvette coupe. At 6'6/210, I don't have any leg/head room to spare. The uneven floor of the Corvette has made the problem even more complicated. What I've done is draw out a plate that is being cut out of 3/16 steel that will bolt directly to the bottom of the seat. I'm then welding pieces of 3/16 "L channel" to the front and rear lip. The front is .5" by .5" while the rear is 1.5" by 1.5". This will account for the slope in the floor. The front will have holes drilled for mounting in the factory floor holes. The .5" height at the front of the seat should be just enough to get a wrench in there to tighten the 5/16 bolt. The L channel in the rear will have two holes drilled on each side, with two 5/16 nuts welded over the holes. With the seat in place, the rear brackets are inaccessible, so the bolts will go in through the bottom, through the factory steel reinforcement plates, and thread into the nuts welded to the bracket. I'm still waiting on the plates, so unfortunately I don't have any pics at the moment.

      Given that the Corvette is so small, there was no need to retain sliders as even my wife can drive the car with the seats in the full aft position. This may or may not be an option in your application. Good luck, and those seats look shockingly good in the factory interior!

    3. #3
      Join Date
      May 2008
      Posts
      20
      Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your approach to the seat height challenges.

      For our '69 Z, I'm giving some thought to:
      Seat Sag: having 1 - 2 of the 4 under-seat springs changed out for straps or lighter springs , plus
      Having a fabricator make custom brackets that attach to the sliders while providing access to the nuts I'm using to secure the studs that go into the factory bolt holes, and/or
      Having fabricator take .5" out of the rear "L" brackets (which are 1" high) and .6" out of front "L" brackets that are 1.3" high.

      The Momo RET36BK2S Retro 360 mm steering wheel was perfect for the steering feel (12.7 ratio with 35 lb/in re-valve for more road feel, using original P/S box) and Grant 5652 cross-flags horn button to match the Z/28 rocker arm cover logos. The Flashpower 6 bolt adapter rounded out that purchase - I plan to pull it, sand it and paint with semi-gloss to match the column properly.

      I took my first drive with this setup last weekend - the steering re-valve (identical feel & effort as our 987.2 CS), suspension, seats and Momo wheel made this as good as the car's going to get for us, and I'm thrilled. During the restoration, I promised myself only bolt-ons & no cutting or welding, so the next owner can spend 2-3 weekends bolting the original DZ302, M21, driveshaft, springs, etc. to make it fully original. Until then, I'm finally able to properly enjoy the car inspired by this L-88 resto-mod Peter Klutt (Legendary MotorCars) did back in '02 We only lack getting the seat height dialed and the diff whine cured.

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    4. #4
      Join Date
      Jan 2014
      Location
      Austin, TX
      Posts
      636
      Country Flag: United States
      Thanks very much for all the information! Did you post a build thread on this car? I'm curious to see if the factory '64 Corvette horn button would work with that wheel...

    5. #5
      Join Date
      May 2008
      Posts
      20
      Very kind of you to ask. We didn't post a build thread, but might throw one together sometime.

      Also, I've been talking with a local upholstery shop about replacing 1-2 of the 4 springs in the Corbeau RRS with lighter rate springs or straps (toward the rear of the seat), helping drop the driver's butt/spine/head down a little bit. Kind of like "sag" - how dirt bikes have dauntingly tall saddle heights until you sit on them, compress the foam and sag the suspension a bit. Every little bit helps, since I really like the RRS seat's comfort / support vs. stock & don't want to have to return these to Summit (their 90 day return policy won my loyalty & I've only used it two times since my 1984 high school days). That same shop would take Corbeau's extra material I might buy to re-cover the rear part of the RRS which has a carbon-fiber look that doesn't fit our car's theme.

    6. #6
      Join Date
      Jan 2014
      Location
      Austin, TX
      Posts
      636
      Country Flag: United States
      Would love to see a build thread when you get around to it. I like seeing the stuff that gets built/upgraded in such a way that the car could be put back to stock in a few weekends worth of work. My '64 is going a similar direction....numbers matching, NCRS, Bloomington Gold...blah, blah, blah.....all well before I bought the car. These things were built to be driven and enjoyed, not sit on parade fields. I get a lot of hate over on the Corvette Forum, but thats about par for the course over there.

    7. #7
      Join Date
      May 2008
      Posts
      20
      Quote Originally Posted by FLYNAVY53 View Post
      Would love to see a build thread when you get around to it. I like seeing the stuff that gets built/upgraded in such a way that the car could be put back to stock in a few weekends worth of work. My '64 is going a similar direction....numbers matching, NCRS, Bloomington Gold...blah, blah, blah.....all well before I bought the car. These things were built to be driven and enjoyed, not sit on parade fields. I get a lot of hate over on the Corvette Forum, but thats about par for the course over there.
      Right there with you, and commend you on not being a slave to the parade field crew. I get more enjoyment out of driving & feeling the car vs. just looking at it. I get my fair share of grief from people saying to put the DZ 302 and Muncie M20 back in, but I'd rarely want to drive the car then. I'll link to a build thread soon, & would welcome the chance to see that '64's build thread when you get a chance.

      Also posting a few pics now that the interior work is nearing completion / may help others avoid the challenges specific to Corbeau RRS plus their double-pin sliders stacked on top of Corbeau/Wedge brackest (Both are D204/D205 part numbers from either company).

      Conclusions:

      Passenger side, we removed the Corbeau double-pin sliders to get the seat height (as measured from passenger's nose to stock headliner) equal to the stock '69 Camaro seat. Reasonable footroom F/R if you just bolt the seat to bracket since those are 13" holes apart. That's cheaper than the alternatives of
      1 - Having an experienced fabricator re-make the Corbeau bracket by cutting its legs off and mounting directly to the floor.
      2 - Having an experienced upholstery shop "integrate" the sliders into the bottom portion of the seat frame and/or change the seat springing to allow more "sag" with driver seated.

      Driver side, we needed the ability to accommodate varying driver heights (plus working underneath the dash from time to time), so we investigated building brand-new brackets from the sliders and skipping brackets entirely. Not cost-effective, so our shop recommended cutting the legs off the brackets and mounting the bracket directly to the floor (with sliders btwn the bracket and seat). Two hours of fab labor ($310) plus several trips to hardware store for 1.75" studs, nuts, washers, etc. and we got it solved. Driver's seat is 0.25" higher than passenger seat after we set the lower seat rake by installing 0.63" of fender washers under the front bracket.

      Overall, the Corbeau RRS Sportline seats feel great. I'd prefer versions without the carbon fiber vinyl backs if they made those but otherwise I like the seats' feel, fitment, integrity and styling.

      The Corbeau bracket/slider situation was a disappointment, requiring considerable fabrication on the driver's side to get to stock height, and compromised functionality on the passenger side since we couldn't justify the money to slide that seat fore/aft. Secondly, the brackets required considerable elongation of holes to get the seats to fit a virgin 40K mile interior / bolt holes.

      Seat belt-wise, I can't say enough nice things about the Morris 3-point seat belts, which are a huge improvement from the stock OEM belts in ease-of-use. Installation was a breeze, and we were able to route the forward part of the belt through the seat's outboard harness hole for a pretty factory look & feel.

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      Corbeau/Wedge bracket with re-worked bolt-down approach from AR Automotive Services of Lake Oswego, OR
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      Corbeau/Wedge bracket before removal of legs (apologies in advance, the uploader is flipping the picture orientation & I can't figure how to delete or get them oriented properly).
      Attachment 156332

    8. #8
      Join Date
      Jan 2014
      Location
      Austin, TX
      Posts
      636
      Country Flag: United States
      Final install looks great! I don't have a build thread over here...yet.... but if you're really bored, you can cruise my thread over on the Corvette forum:

      https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-coupe-11.html

      It covers the day I dragged her home up through now. After I finish this first round of mods, Ill post a more concise thread on this board covering the tune up of the solid lifter 327, the disc brake conversion, suspension upgrades, interior refresh, etc.

    9. #9
      Join Date
      May 2008
      Posts
      20

      Corbeau bracket before modification

      Wasn't able to edit prior post, so trying again on this one to show pic of the non-modified Corbeau/Wedge bracket + slider stack that goes between seat and floor, resulting in driver being 1.25" higher than if driver's in factory seat/bracket.

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      AR Auto Services modified the bracket by cutting off the legs, and adding a tab to secure the nut onto the stud in one of the corners (south-west corner), which is shown in pic --the floor/stud area is almost right under the slider, so it's not fun to get everything snugged down. We used 1 7/8" studs (5/16-18 bottom, 5/16-24 top threads) to simplify removal/re-installation during fitment since we had to elongate the holes and were being very conservative with the elongation process.

      End result with modified Corbeau bracket/sliders is driver sits 0.25" higher than height measured sitting in stock seat. Would be better if Corbeau integrated room for sliders into the bottom portion of their seat instead of bolting seat on top of slider on top of bracket then-to-floor, but oh well. Very happy with the fit now that it's nearly done. Might get the backs changed from the carbon look to basic faux leather like the front of the seat once the credit card heals.

      - - - Updated - - -

      Quote Originally Posted by FLYNAVY53 View Post
      Final install looks great! I don't have a build thread over here...yet.... but if you're really bored, you can cruise my thread over on the Corvette forum:

      https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-coupe-11.html

      It covers the day I dragged her home up through now. After I finish this first round of mods, Ill post a more concise thread on this board covering the tune up of the solid lifter 327, the disc brake conversion, suspension upgrades, interior refresh, etc.
      That is a truly nice pair of cars. Congrats on having gorgeous toys that are equally usable for fun events.



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