So I figured I should maybe start a thread about my cage and race seat install and pass some information and lessons learned onto other people who are interested in this track upgrade.
As anyone who has tried sourcing a cage they have ran into limited options. As a result I decided to build my own cage.
I am pretty happy with the results, while I used the Mercedes Black Series promo video cage as my starting point I did make some changes that I feel are better performance at the expense of reinstalling some of the trim panels.
Not to say the trim panels cannot be reinstalled, just that I would have to cut them up a bit more than I want to at this moment. I could reinstall them but as of now, there is little to no need.
Besides, a winter project is to put the car on diet. So I may strip additional interior items.
Cage fit up prior to welding. I built a jig at the same time so when I build another cage I can eliminate A LOT of the initial trial fitting.
I would say that I am 95% happy with the current dimensions. I will build another cage to tweak a few very minor issues.
Where my cage differs from probably all the others is I removed the factory seat belt bracket and incorporated it into the main hoop. By doing this I was able to make the main hoop about 10-odd inches wider than the MB cage.
It is cleaner and keeps the main hoop pushed out to the side windows.
This winter I will also be remaking the base plate for the diagonals. If you look closely at each fastener there are spacers on the plates all slightly different sizes. I will machine this plate out of stock rather than welding the spaces onto the plates. I will probably countersink the holes while I am at it. Also the one fastener that is a Phillips head screw I will probably make as a socket head. It is a odd pitch screw that does not have many options.
Finished and installed cage. Let me tell you this is a PITA! But now that I have completed it. Making another would be easy.
Color turned out pretty close, wet it was identical. But it dried much shiny-er and more metallic-y.
Factory seat belt is in same location if I want to reinstall the factory seats or use the 3-point belts. Another winter project is building an attachment point for the lower belt and installing a new receiver mounted to the side of the race seat bracket.
Here is the seat bracket I made to install the Recaro SPG Profi XL seats and Schroth 6-point sub harness.
A bit overkill on material. I will make new brackets out of some lighter materials.
But this works like a champ with the Recaro seat brackets and sliders.
You will also have to machine the heads down on the socket head screws to clear the Recaro tracks. Some do come with the kit, but I needed 4 more per seat.
I found out the hard way that if the heads touch the seat tracks, they will cross thread 100% of the time. Fixing that added a lot of time.
Note: there is some light grinding of the floor to remove some material for seat brackets to clear. Minor but I cannot say that this is 100% plug and play.
I did not take a picture of the area where I had to remove material before the seats were installed. I will take a picture later if people are interested, but for now I am not going to remove the seats as it is somewhat not a lot of fun.
See above picture with holes indicated. There is a lip below these bolt holes that you will have to remove with a die grinder.
There may be other options or these holes can be moved slightly or I could have modified the bolts. These bolt holes are to bolt the Recaro sliders to my bracket
Long story is that when the car was in the shop for a bunch of other things, I ask the mechanic to test fit the seats for me. I wanted to make sure there were no major issues.
He made some temporary brackets just so that we could fix the seats in place. He drilled these holes and the other 2 you can see in the picture into the Recaro sliders as the sliders do not come with these holes.
I would have done this slightly different but, that is the cards I was dealt.
I will also post later all the part numbers of the seats, brackets, sliders and harness if other people want to follow this path.
Seats installed!!!
Sub bar doing its job and belts positions pretty darn close to Schroth's instructions. My bracket has a few different points where you can locate the sub bar as it is fixed while the seat can move. So based on seat race position, the sub bar can be adjusted.
I have made a few CAD drawings of the cage and seat bracket. If you are interested, PM me with your email address and I will send.
This is still a work in progress and not something for the inexperienced. It will take a skilled fabricator to make the cage for sure, my junk RSR cage is a testament to that.
I feel that I should add a disclaimer here that if you leapfrog off my work , I take zero responsibility if you crash and die. I make no claims that this cage and seat bracket will support high speed impact or rollover loads. LOL.
One more thing to note, with the revised MB BS cage design plus my cage pushing the bars outwards; this improves on the belt angle as it passes through the seat back.
It appears from pictures I have seen that the outboard belt is at a very odd angle. Mine is probably at least 5 inches further over.
I just got back from 2 days out at Area 27. Wonderful track.
I did log some video which I may post later. The seats and harness worked amazingly well.
I could only imagine how difficult it would be to drive that track with the standard seat belts.
Also after 2 days of hard track driving I was not sore one bit.
Usually, I am exhausted at the end of the day and my legs and butt are pretty sore.
Also, plan to run my home track this weekend and there is a new track which I bought a membership to, that is still under construction.
The new track is promising us that we will still get some laps this year.
Do you lose the steering adjustment after switching to bucket? I'm thinking of similar approach but don't want to lose the adjustability
Yes you will lose that function. I moved the wheel to a position that I was happy with before disconnecting the factory seats.
Perhaps with some coding we can regain that function. Not sure how the Euro cars are doing it with the factory race buckets??
Following Codes will come up when the seats are removed:
-Driver Air Bag
-Passenger Air Bag
-Brake Assist
-Pre-Safe
I suspect all these issues can be coded out.
Not sure how the Euro cars are doing it with the factory race buckets??
Hi,
They have no memory paket and mechanical adjustable steering column.
Quote:
Originally Posted by canucklehead
Following Codes will come up when the seats are removed:
-Driver Air Bag
-Passenger Air Bag
-Brake Assist
-Pre-Safe
I suspect all these issues can be coded out.
Must all work if you coded out only the memory paket.
You are a brave man! Congratulations it looks pretty cool.
in this video they speak about re programming the computer to allow the steering to work and not have those air bag codes. Maybe you should contact them.
The amount of effort a driver on track saves by simply being restrained properly with a decent ‘racing’ seat and belts can’t be overstressed. It makes the whole experience far less stressful; safer and of course quicker!
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
