Seat insert for a five foot two inch driver
We had a unique situation. My daughter is Five feet two and her coach is Six feet two. We wanted both the coach and driver to be able to drive the SR3. I bought a Tillett B4 seat and a Recaro FIA slider but couldn't mount it properly. We were stuck with the bench seat so we decided to make a seat insert. Also had to make pedal extensions for all 3 pedals, a 1 inch platform for her heals just before the pedals and the steering wheel is pushed as close to the dash as we could while keeping clearance for her hands from the AIM display. It's still not ideal, the steering wheel is too close to her chest so she has no leverage but she's able to do laps. The insert was made at J.P. Motis Service and Tuning in Cyprus. Great guys there who service Radical drivers in Greece and Israel as well. They imported the foam kit and fit it to my daughter. Then had it covered in Alcantara. It came out awesome! Deviated orange stitching for good measure. We brought it out to the track and it worked great. Plenty of lateral support and the foam allows the belts to be sinched really tight.
Switching to the coach's settings is easy. The steering column is marked for both drivers so we move the steering wheel back to his mark, taking out the small fabricated platform for the pedal box, take out the pedal extensions and take out the seat insert.
Now we need to get her on a conditioning plan. Between everything happening so much faster than her kart to the physicality of the unboosted steering with slicks and down force she doesn't do many laps yet but she's shaving off couple seconds every weekend we go out.
(@nicklaconico), It looks like you have done the best thing possible in your situation. The only other thing I can think of is to move the pedal box toward the rear of the car but that won't help much if you need to have the coach fit in the car also.
The conditioning requirements are definitely something everyone needs to work up to. Driving these cars is certainly a very physical experience. If it is too much for your daughter to overcome you might want to contact Radical and see if one of the power steering systems that are an option in the SR8 could be adapted to her SR3.
Charley
Great idea Charlie! I'll give them a call today. Thanks for the advice!
Beautiful job on the seat insert... I love the Alcantara covering !
Also if you haven't thought of it yet, especially if she's used to Karting, a spin-safe clutch might be a good investment... it's the hardest thing to think about pressing the clutch pedal when you spin when you are used to always braking with left foot... 😉
My 2 cent