This past weekend I picked up a Kirkey 09200 seat for $20.00 without the cover. For the money I couldn't pass on it as I may use this in the 914 for AX and DE's. So any of you guys using these? If yes how did you install them? I believe Kirkey says NOT to use sliders? Any pics of installs? I figure if I don't install it in the 914 I can always display it in the " man room ".

I have one installed in my 914 Ax car. Using a 5 point harness with it. I welded up a bracket to adapt it to the stock sliders. For the small autocrosses, I go to, it passes inspection. I suspect that it will not pass PCA or other sanctioning bodies.

I wanted it so, other people would fit in my car. It should be easy to weld a fixed location bracket also.

When I get home tonight, I will take a picture of it.

-- brett

Ok. Have some pictures, but the light was poor. You can't see the adapter, but you can see how it sits in the car. Again, lighting was poor.

ok, resurrecting an old thread here after using the search function.

For those of you running the Kirkey Intermediates as shown in the thread above, is it even possible to get in and out of your 914 with these without going through the roof?

I'm 6'3" 185lbs and have a full roll cage so I think my only choice will be the Pro-Drag model shown below.

Anybody else in this situation, your experience is greatly appreciated!

When I bought my race car it had the same seat as yours, which is an off-road seat which supports the driver around the rib cage.

The car was beyond impossible to get in and out of.

I just installed the Kirkey Road Intermediate, and it fits perfectly, and does not impede ingress and egress at all. The supports are around the shoulder area.

The third pic is of the older off-road seat, which was just horrible for getting in and out. The rib wrap-arounds stuck me right in the back, and once in the car, I needed a chain and come-along to get me out of the car!

My car uses the drag racing seat for the passenger seat. I just re-installed it (removed the cool-box and cold air pump) so I can be instructed.

The drag seat is not very rigid, mine is also fastened at the seat back to the roll bar. I would say it's fine for street/track, but the Road Intermediate is the model that fits and really feels good.

I am 6'5" and had considered getting the Kirkey Intermediate seat due to the ability to mount very low. Some people love aluminum seats (such as Kirkey) and others hate them. I suspect it's mostly just a personal comfort issue. Ideally you should sit in any seat before you buy it to make sure you like how it feels.

Two extra points…

First, I suspect that if you plan to use a Kirkey at a track event or for racing that you will need a back support. This is because I believe that many (most? all?) sanctioning bodies require a back brace to be in place on any seat that is not either OEM or has FIA certification. I don’t think any of the Kirkey seats are FIA certified and am pretty sure the cheaper ones are not. I also can’t imagine how a back brace for a non-FIA seat will work with seat sliders (as for the back brace to work the seat need to be in a fixed position). I didn’t want the extra cost and hassle of the back brace so I went with a composite FIA seat which while more expensive should be able to be mounted as low as the Kirkey. But I am sure you can mount and use a Kirkey safely.

Second, again if you are planning on this for a track car, I don’t know if the group you run with has an “equal protection” rule for instructors. The idea being that both the driver and passenger have equally good safety equipment. They don’t have to be identical and what is considered to be “equal” can be debated, but Puff Adder above may eventually run into an instructor who may not want to ride in his car with that drag seat. Point being I think you should consider having two equal seats (such as same level of side impact protection) if you plan to have an instructor in your car.

Thanks Puff, those are the pics and feedback I need! PCA requires both driver and passenger to be seated and restrained identically so to Richard's comments, you may need to change out the passenger seat to match the driver. Think of it from the passenger's view. You want them to have the same protection as yourself.

My seats will be rigidly mounted to the floor and a back brace to the roll cage. Anybody else who wants to drive the car will need a booster seat (sorry Cupomeat).

Anybody else have pics of their Kirkey installs?

Thanks for the heads up.

My car has been around for many years, and the passenger seat was fine for at least 5 or 6 different racing groups since at least the early 90's, and I am sure it is OK. Both seats have 5 point racing belts, and the passenger seat is very rigidly mounted.

Of course, if i need to replace it I will.

Everything was built and used by the previous owner who raced the car a LOT.

As soon as I am done with instruction and giving rides, the passenger seat comes out and the cool box and cold air pump go in it's place.

I've seen some cool back supports in Porsches that are a tube-within-a-tube that telescope in and out with the seat, but I don't think those can work with the 914.

Richard, what seat did you go with and how did you fit it in? I checked your blog, but didn't see any details there.

Hopefully they will show up on the Blog in a few months when I start mounting them (test mount prior to painting).

In addition to height issues, I am also a big guy so I can't fit in a "regular" sized seat due to the width of my hip bones. So the need to move up a size made it really hard for me to try out seats as most places only have regular on display and most of my friends have regular sized seats. Because of this, I wasn't able to follow my own advice and try out a seat prior to buying it.

So I rolled the dice and bought a seat that based upon the published measurements would fit both me and the car. As it turned out, the seat fits me very well. I went with the "Momo Super Cup XL". The "XL" just means it's the large size of the regular Super Cup seat. Seats were about $500 each. Which are more than something like a Kirkey, but I don't have to buy or fabricate a back support and it's nice to know it's an FIA seat. I know the "MOMO Start" is also very popular and is also cheaper than the Super Cup. Unfortunatly I don't fit in the MOMO Start. Both the Super Cup and Start are FIA seats composite fiberglass seats.

I purchased mine from http://www.ltbmotorsports.com/ which has good prices, but currently they don't list either hte Super Cup or Start. Not sure why.

I forgot to mention that tube frame seats are also an option, but you can't mount those as low as a composite or all aluminum seat. So due to my height it was either the aluminum or composite seat. Good deals can be found with tube frame seats.

Thanks. We've got a tube frame Corbeau GT seat from the 80's that is too bulky for my size. I hear that the Momo Start has a low seat bottom profile but, can it be mounted as low as the Kirkey which I should be able to bolt directly to the floor? What I really need to do is find someone with a 914 who has one of these seats mounted in a 914 that I could sit in. Unfortunately, up here in the Northeast, there aren't that many modified 914s.

I think you can mount a composite seat just as low as an aluminum seat. Like aluminum seats the actual seat body is thin. That’s the main reason why tube frame seats can’t go that low as the tubes increase the effective “thickness” of the seat. The aluminum seat has the advantage in that I think you can just drill holes in the bottom as needed (within reason) and bolt directly to the floor while the composite seat have hard mounting points that you must use. Most composite seats have mounts on the side (a very few have mounts on then bottom) which means you must use a mount of some type (either pre-made or home-made) which you can then bolt to the floor or a stock slider. But if you don’t use a slider, you can still mount them so low that they are touching the floor just like an aluminum seat.

In my case, I am going to custom fabricate a mount (plus some floor reinforcements) that allows me to mount my seat pretty in such a way that it is so low it could touch the floor. To get this low, I will be removing any of the stock mounting hardware (such as the hinges that are welded to the body). For those who are not as tall as me you could leave those in place and use the stock sliders. I don’t know if stock sliders would pass tech inspection in a track car or not (may not be an issue at all).

The side mounts will eat a bit into the width (another advantage of the bolt through the bottom aluminum seat), but even with my wider seat plus side mount hardware it will fit in a 914. But with the side mounts you don’t have to worry about sitting on any bolt heads either. The padding is removable, so if I want, the bottom of my butt is going to be less than an inch off the bottom of the car which is pretty good in my opinion. All of this is in theory as I have yet to fabricate my mounts. But I have test fitted the seats minus a mount and it should work.