[jabrax]

Anyone running on track with standard seats? How are they on track?

[Jon H]

I've yet to get the car on the track yet but I'm already sliding around too much on standard seats with the bolsters on it's tightest setting in the canyons. Tracked my GT-Rs quite a bit and slid around less than the standard M3 seats. Still have my track seat that I'll eventually swap in for track days. 5'10" @ 215 lbs athletic build with a muffin top.

[beachBmmr]

Originally Posted by jabrax

Anyone running on track with standard seats? How are they on track?

Yes. Not great. Need a lot of dead pedal bracing

[forumlurker]

cutting + spirited driving on standard seats = ab maker

[Vote Quimby]

Originally Posted by beachBmmr

Yes. Not great. Need a lot of dead pedal bracing

I tend to supplement that dead pedal bracing with some pretty significant left knee door card pressure, to the point where I'm sporting a nice bruise there for most of the summer.

Now that you mention it it's actually pretty awful.

Red carbon buckets rather than white standard seats, if I were to do it all over again … sigh.

[BMWRacer523]

Not great as can be expected. Wish I had gotten the buckets, my only regret with this car.

[fl1by]

CFB would have been great for the track, but after 35K miles I am satisfied with the compromise of "standard" seats. If I had a crew and could swap one set for the other at the track that would be ideal! Oh well.. I'd most likely have a couple of dedicated track cars/ stacker trailer/RV at that financial point.

[mattssi]

Did a one day M school. The buckets make such a huge difference for the track. I daily drive aggressively sometimes and you always have to knee/dead pedal brace in stock seats.

I wish Fiona was available in buckets the first year.

[stalintc]

I have 3 HPDE days in my car, 20k miles, the normal seats have been pretty good. Same as my focus RS was, with the exception of the pain. I'm a bigger guy. As others have stated, copious amounts of dead pedal and knees on the sides of the door / console. I have not been able to sit in the carbon seats yet. Considering the amount of time I spend driving vs track I'm happy with the compromise.

[jmg]

I track with the standard seats and I tracked with the M Competition seats for years in my F80, and it's right on par with those, so they aren't terrible for the track. However, I still contemplate if I should have gotten the carbon buckets. Having tried them at M School, I know I can stand to drive at least 2 hours in them, no problem, anything more than that and I might need a chinese beat down back massage.

I do have the CG-Lock "racing" harness and it helps a lot keeping you planted with reduced movement.

[tsk94]

I've tracked lots of cars (personal, friends, students) that have 'standard' seats with normal 3 point seat belts. The trick is to lock the seat belt. I typically move the seat back slightly, lock the belt then buckle it and move the seat forward to tighten it down (easy with seat memory of new cars). Done properly it won't loosen up over a session and holds you in sooo much better. Much less to little reliance on dead pedal bracing or shoving your knee into the door this way lol.

Basically accomplishes the same thing as the above post with a totally standard belt.

[Vote Quimby]

Originally Posted by tsk94

I've tracked lots of cars (personal, friends, students) that have 'standard' seats with normal 3 point seat belts. The trick is to lock the seat belt. I typically move the seat back slightly, lock the belt then buckle it and move the seat forward to tighten it down (easy with seat memory of new cars). Done properly it won't loosen up over a session and holds you in sooo much better. Much less to little reliance on dead pedal bracing or shoving your knee into the door this way lol.

Basically accomplishes the same thing as the above post with a totally standard belt.

How do you lock it, though?

And then once I do, will it still give me an additional pretensioning hug when I drive away? Or in a crash, for that matter? Those would be suffocating or crushing, respectively, I imagine.

[tsk94]

I can't speak to a G80, as I haven't driven one on track. But E92, F82 it all applied. There was no pretensioning on those cars, so that wasn't a problem - does the G80 pretension?
Fortunately I've never crashed, so I can't speak to that situation. I think it would be very unlikely that if the vehicle did tension the seat belt further in a crash, it wouldn't be to the point of crushing or suffocating you... Whether or not it's even capable of tensioning the belt when it's already locked is also a question - I would assume so though?

How do you lock it? You quickly pull it to engage the lock, then buckle in. Then there's no slack. It's not an exact science as you need to pull it somewhat the right amount before locking. But that's where moving the seat back first helps. If it's not quite snug enough, the slack can be taken up by moving the seat back forward to your normal position.

[RACE M3]

I just did totd and spent more effort holding myself in place than driving. I ended up using two belts to tie myself to the seat lol

[herbnlegend]

Originally Posted by stalintc

I have 3 HPDE days in my car, 20k miles, the normal seats have been pretty good. Same as my focus RS was, with the exception of the pain. I'm a bigger guy. As others have stated, copious amounts of dead pedal and knees on the sides of the door / console. I have not been able to sit in the carbon seats yet. Considering the amount of time I spend driving vs track I'm happy with the compromise.

I have an M4 CXD coming across the ocean as I speak with CFBs.

I tracked my Focus RS 4 weekends. The Recaro seats in that were bolstered very nicely. And the suede helped stick you to the seat as well. Despite the aggressive bolstering I still had trouble staying in my seat on track. I'm 5'11 170lb and fit rather nicely, deep into the seat.

After driving around in my friends M4 CXD with standard seats just on the road, I can tell they aren't gonna allow you to go more than 6 or 7/10 on the track.

[stalintc]

Originally Posted by tsk94

I've tracked lots of cars (personal, friends, students) that have 'standard' seats with normal 3 point seat belts. The trick is to lock the seat belt. I typically move the seat back slightly, lock the belt then buckle it and move the seat forward to tighten it down (easy with seat memory of new cars). Done properly it won't loosen up over a session and holds you in sooo much better. Much less to little reliance on dead pedal bracing or shoving your knee into the door this way lol.

Basically accomplishes the same thing as the above post with a totally standard belt.

I never thought move the seat forward to tighten further, Thanks!! This is my first car with electric seats so I'll claim that as the reason 😂

[BMWRacer523]

Originally Posted by fl1by

CFB would have been great for the track, but after 35K miles I am satisfied with the compromise of "standard" seats. If I had a crew and could swap one set for the other at the track that would be ideal! Oh well.. I'd most likely have a couple of dedicated track cars/ stacker trailer/RV at that financial point.

Been there, done that. Had the whole rig (race car, enclosed trailer, truck) and weekend support crew for a while but it got old too. I missed just being able to drive to the track, put gas, check tire pressures, torque wheels and have fun. You seem to be street driving the M3 a lot more than me so I get it.

[LuvMyE92]

For me personally, the standard seats are preferred because the CFB are just too difficult to get in and out of. For every session I do at the track, I'll probably drive the car on the street for a month... so the trade off leans toward daily use. Pumping up the bolsters to the max really helps me, and I'm more toward the "skinny" side than some of you guys. 5'8" 144 lbs. OK, maybe 145.

If you want to stay in your seat, really the only way to do it right is with a harness bar, or roll bar, and a proper 5-point harness. Of course, then you get into that whole "you can't use 5-pt. with stock seats" debate, to which I say "pffffffffffffffft". All I know is that I hit the wall, hard, with a 5-pt. in stock seats and walked away - my only injury was from the airbag throwing my arm against the door. I've also hit the wall in a stock car with 3-pts and walked away uninjured, and then again in yet another car, sideways, 5-pt. with cage. I got whiplash with that one, but that was back before HANS was ubiquitous.

This is why I don't instruct on the track any more.

[Sparapet]

Having tracked both standard and CFB seats on the g80’s and g82’s I came away with this impression:

Standard seats work fine with the belt tight enough. When you are above 7/10’s yeah, you devote some mental energy to sliding in the seat but it isn’t enough to distract from pushing the car.

CFB are amazing. Doing the exact same thing in CFBs as in stanadard seats you basically forget the seat is there. No mental energy is spent on the sliding in the seat stuff. So if you track regularly I would recommend CFBs. If you dont track regularly and daily your car then standard seats work fine. I went with standards even after tracking CFBs because of the ventilation option. It gets mad hot and humid in the mid Atlantic area and I like to drive windows down.