Non-Reclinable Seats

[shurman]

hi yall. i have a civic coupe and i am looking for bucket seats, i like the feel of the rigid non-reclinable seats. i will only be buying one for the drivers side atm. My question is if these types of seats are illegal to have in a coupe (in WA specifically)?
thanks

[Zdster]

If the seats are going into a car with a back seat, then you need to re-engineer the car as a two seater. As far as I understand if the cars only a two seater then you can put in a fixed front seat - although might be worth calling your local state authority.

[zorrt]

Yea its illegal to have non reclinable seats in coupe. I think one reason would be incase of an accident they won't be able to get the rear passenger out without have to saw through the chair which is time consuming and dangerous. But then again changing your seats to any sports seats is illegal without engineer certificate so either way you'll get done.

[EK9_boi]

also with seat belts i think using full non-reclinable buckets means you have to use a harness which means you have to have the harness at a 45 degree( or whatever angle it is) to the chair meaning you lose your back seats, meaning you car becomes a 2 seater =)...so that means you need an eng cert. for buckets, harness and it being a 2 seater car...

Not necessarily so. Reg seatbelts can be used but have to be rethreaded through the harness holes - the revolution racegear guys state there are no race harnesses that are road-legal.

Harnesses should NEVER be mounted at 45 degs. that is so dangerous - harness brackets have a higher probability of snapping at that angle.

Besides that, for a 4 seater, coupe or otherwise, no fixed bucket seat is street legal, for 2 reasons:

1) if coupe, like said, the rear occupants' exit may be hindered in case of an accident.

2) In both a coupe and 4 door, the rear of the bucket seat is classified as a rigid impact point and hence in the case of an accident it will fail to afford sufficient padding for the rear occupants, thus increasing the risk of injury.

Installation of the seat require engineering certification to ensure the rails and the seat is mounted correctly, and provides/exceeds the level of protection that OEM seats afford. In addition to that, some seatbelt clips are attached to the OEM seat rails and hence require welding to the replacement rails or/the vehicle floor (highly not recommended) - this too requires your engineer friend.

Now budget-wise, you'll get a relatively good fixed bucket seat for around the $1200-2000 (I'm thinking Recaros/cobra/sparco) - engineering could set you back $2-3K depending on how much labour. That's just the setup costs!!!

You'll be spending all of these expenses to get your car "track legal" but you'll never be able to roll it on the streets with out the fear of cops busting your a$$ - think about it man! (or by a S2k!)

cheers

[quangsta]

my bad....

EK9_boi