hey all i'm looking at getting racing seats, do these need to be professionally installed or can i do it myself at home

Be careful modifying seats, they're part of the safety system in the car so they'll be heavily covered by regulations and rules. Check with ADR to be sure, even still you might be up for an engineers certifcate to make them legal.

I looked at a set of seats for my car, guy pretty much told me it wasnt worth it as to be legal you need an engineers cert.

Yet I remember reading on the NSW offical 'what you can do to your car' thingy, that seats fell under the category of DIY. So I dunno.

i know in qld u can do all the work urself, but u have to have it checked by an engineer. while i was at opposite lock we had a few ppl get stratos, etc seats put in. we had to take them over to TJM to have their guy check it, he was the closest qualifed person. i believe it used to cost bout $80.


Tim

In NSW if you don't modify the chassy or bolts on the chassy it's legal to make your own brackets for a seat. I baught some racing seats and spent 2 weeks putting them in. You will need to get slyders, the magna ones will not fit a racing seat. I got some slyders from a VS commodore and then made brackets(3X40X450mm high tensile steel) to fit the bolt pattern in the floor. The magnas have 2 threaded holes at the back 430mm or so apart and 2 bolts at the frount about 400mm apart so if you try to mount the slyders on the chassy they are not straght. Nightmare job but worth it in the end.

or look into retrimming them instead :) if lookin at recaro's or something, plus brackets, engineers cert etc, it could well b not much more for a fake leather or some such

I went through this excercise recently to put a Recaro in. In NSW (don't know about other states) you have to use the original seat rails and seatbelt mounting point. The bracket is re-inforced. If you are going to make up brackets to go on the original rails, you have to bare in mind that the original seat gets it's strength from large side brackets that hold the back in place. The seat base doesn't require any real bracing. But when you replace it with an aftermarket seat, you don't have that large bracing to the back, you have to achieve the strength through the base, so some skilled engineering is required (ie get someone who knows what they are doing to do it so it is strong). After that you have to get it engineered $130 and then take that certificate to a blue slip inspector to get a change of records certificate $23, then take it all to RTA to make it official (that bit is free). Oh and tell your insurance company.

Unless you are going to get a good aftermarket seat (Recaro, Sparco etc) it is not worth the cost. Autotecknica/Saas seats from Repco/Autobahn/Supercheap are no real improvement over standard after a while when they start to loose shape and comfort.

If you want any more details about what I did to fit my seat PM me.

Does anyone know where I can go to find info on the QLD legalities of racing seats? ANd what I need to do/who i need to see to get them checked out as legal and safe?

I'm looking at a set of these... http://images.marketworks.com/fullView.asp?id=153070436&fc=0&img=http://www.soldsmart.com.au/files/CL7022BW/CL7022BW_3.jpg


Thanks
Bonnie