Well the ultrashield seats suck!

[want2race]

I did about 250 miles on Thursday in my car!

 

I have the Road Race Pro seat in my car from Ultrashield and I thought it was fine.. Lets just say my back KILLED thursday night. Friday morning I was in agony and could barely move!

The car beat the hell out of my back and that seat didnt have much padding.

 

Since I cant find many other options that size I am going to get a good padding to insert between the seat and the cover.

 

Anyone have any other ideas? Does everyones car kick their ass?

[JohnCh]

Memory foam is nice stuff for seat padding. Although expensive if purchased from automotive suppliers, the price comes down considerably when bought as a mattress pad. Overstock.com carries 1” king sized pads for $40 and 1.5” version for $70. If you want the padding thicker in some area, just glue sheets together with a spray adhesive.

 

-John

[lowflyer]

The mattress pad stuff is too soft, IMHO.

 

May I suggest that you buy one of those pads that are used in exercise classes, or for sleeping on when camping.

 

They are only about 1" thick but are very dense and don't "squish" as much as normal foam. I built a pair of seats for my Staker using 3/4 plywood, and then built up the padding with two sleeping pads from the local sporting good store. I ended up with anywhere from 2" to 4" in different locations.

 

Don't get me wrong, after a couple of hours bounding around on some backroad, I'm still worn out. My wife has a two words for it, "Numb butt".

 

There's also a product, which is quite pricey, sold by race shops, it's called "Backsaver" or something close to that. It was developed by NASA for the Astronauts. The memory foam may be a good alternative too.

 

Good luck

 

http://www.usa7s.net/ASPNETFORUM/upload/1541011716_stalker105.jpg

[Ian7]

The mattress pad stuff is too soft, IMHO.

 

There's also a product, which is quite pricey, sold by race shops, it's called "Backsaver" or something close to that. It was developed by NASA for the Astronauts.

 

Ditto mattress pad no good. The backsaver is definitely what you want !! $120 at Pegasus for a 16x30 sheet, one inch thick. Worth every penny, we use them in the formula cars.

[powderbrake]

I also have Ultrashield seats.

I added about 1"of foam in the seat bottom, added 1/2" foam to the seat back, and an additional 1" in the lower back (lumbar region). This makes it OK for a 250 mile day.

 

I have the 20 degree layback drag seats, so they may be a bit different from the Road race seats.

[WestTexasS2K]

Since Kevin and I have pulled some serious seat time in the Ultralite 750-1000 mile days I have a few suggestions. We found the seats really needed lumbar region support. We used about 3' medium denisty foam glued to the seat this way the cover still can get be removed and washed. We got some 2" foam from Aircraft spruce that is used for pilots on long trips. We made these into seat cushions but we found that they do tend to be a little on the soft side when its really hot out. They are a little firm when cold but warm up and do well after you sit on them for a few min. overall they cushions work really well. When we get to the track we usually remove them so we can sit a little lower in the car. Kevin also found a Gel seat pad from Homedics that worked pretty well and it was only about 1" thick.

 

I once bought some seats from FLoFit that had a adjustable bladder for lumbar support that had a pump buld. It worked pretty well and lets you adjust the lumbar to your liking.

[soareyes]

The key to making my Ultrashield seat comfortable was to mount the seat in a semi-reclining position (tilted back). This takes some of your weight off your butt. Sort of like the difference between sitting in a church pew vs. a Lazy-Boy recliner. A side benefit is that your head is lower in the cockpit so you feel less wind turbulence.

 

 

 

[JohnK]

Couple of thoughts. There's a company in Cincinnati named "Sunshine Foam" who supply good quality foam to the upholstery industry. When you walk in and ask for some foam, they guide you over to an ordinary wooden chair that's next to a rack filled with maybe 20 pieces of foam (they also probably are sizing up the width of your butt). They have you sit on a range of pieces and judge which feels the best and ask you what the foam is going to be a part of. It's never as simple as it seems. Secondly, in the process of developing my attempt at a Se7en, I made it a point to fabricate the seat mounts for the Ultrashield seats that came with the kit with trapped rubber washers. Grainger and Reid have some nice ones which put a significant amount of rubber between the connecting pieces. While these don't seem to do much at first glance, they do filter out high frequency vibrations which are a non-obvious source of discomfort/damage to the joints. For details search the General Discussion section and "WCM ultralite seat mounting" topic. There's also a bit about trimming the side supporting wings on these seats so your elbows don't get banged up. Current open-wheel race cars have the seat in its own separate suspension system.

[pi7ot]

Do what Stan says and tilt the seat back.

Next, What you need for padding is a product called *backsaver pad*. While not cheap, you get a Military spec shock absorbing pad that you trim and use it to replace the padding provided by ultrashield. I use a 14 " rally sport seat from ultrashield. With the backsaver pad, this combo is more comfortable than the Recaros in my E30 M3 and much more comfy than the jokes called Vaders that are in my E36 M3.

 

www.pegasusautoracingsupplies.com sells the Backsaver pad.

 

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