Tillett Seat Mount

[11Budlite]

Since I sent out the simple parts to be fabricated to SendCutSend, I figured I would do the more complicated parts myself. I've been trying to decide how to mount my Tillett seat and had run across one method someone in the UK had used that I though might work okay for me. He used two aluminum angle pcs per side with a pivot so you could adjust the angle of the seat. Everything I had read seemed to recommend the front of the seat about an 1" higher than the rear. My first mistake was using 1" x 1" aluminum angle for both the upper and lower mounts. I thought that the lower the seat was, the better. Well, my first track day confirmed otherwise when I was having a dificult time seeing the apex on some of the corners, specifically turns 6 and 13 at Palmer.

 

So when I got home a slight redesign was in order. I used the original upper mount in 1" angle, but bought some 2" angle which I cut down to 2" x 1.375". Both upper and lower aluminum angle is .1875 thick. Did a quick mock-up and raising the seat an inch put my sight line where it needed to be. Having the seat raised up also gave more room for the crotch strap to be routed under the seat. So I took it all back apart and started laying out a pattern of lightening holes to see where I could save some weight. All holes were center punched, pilot drilled with an 1/8" bit, center drilled, final drilled with a few different carbide tipped hole saws, then chamfered. There are also (5) different mounting locations to move the seat forward or aft. All hardware is aircraft grade (other than metric to mount to the seat) and I used T-bolts with a tight fit to the lower rail so they wont turn when tightnening the seat mounts to the floor. So far it's worked very well, although the seat fit is unbelievably tight in the cockpit of a S3 chassis. Just 1" more width in the cockpit would make installing the seat and adjusting the lap belt so much easier. I saved right around 2lbs over the standard adjustable seat rails which weigh a little over 4lbs per set. That's for one seat. The following photos show the result.

 

Edited May 29, 2025 by 11Budlite

[wdb]

Those are beautiful. Nice work!

[11Budlite]

49 minutes ago, wdb said:

Those are beautiful. Nice work!

Thanks, it was a lot of work. Unfortunately once it's installed you can't see it!