model 3 on track - the need for a good seat (take the poll)

[stevehifi]

Hey Guys,

I'm sure all of you that have been on track with your model 3 have noticed how terrible the stock seats are at holding you in during maneuvers and how it's probably just
as or more important as any suspension, brake or tire mod for the car.

The seat is what gives you:
-the feel of the chassis and the road
-the stability and confidence to drive at the limit
-what keeps you held in place in acceleration and handling

I created a poll to see what most drivers would like to see since I think there is a need to support this in the aftermarket and it would be good to see
what the responses are.

BTW here's some pics of a brand new M2 seat (something that would be ideal). Notice the heavy bolstering on the bottom and hips. I sat in this car today
and then back in my Model 3, it was amazing how much better the seating position felt in the M2.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Mash]

Recliners should be better, especially for daily use. But everything I've tried that you can buy is just not holding you really well compare to some good OEM performance seats.

I had Recaro on Evo X and it was great. I feel like it's a conspiracy of some kind. I can't say that Sportster CS is that good and its the most advanced recliner from Recaro (podium holds worse than sportster) ...

I'm waiting for MPP (I hope it won't be too high) coming with their stock based electric seat slider and I will cut head protection from my sim rig Sparco Circuit (that is the best holding seat from all I ever tried short of custom inserts), make holes for 3pt seat belt, relocate lumbar, seat heating and occupancy sensor, reholster into the same white pu leather as Tesla stock, fix to the floor 2 bottom straps for Schroth QuickFit, add fan at the bottom to ventilate it in summer, maybe even move airbag from the stock seat.

And hopefully it will be usable. With thick memory foam paddings it might be usable even for long trips.

 

[Lindenwood]

I would probably have to go with a reclining option since my wife occasionally drives my car.

That said, while my last race day since getting my Schroths was canceled, wearing the 4pt seems to make a night-and-day difference during even a mildly spirited drive. So, while it wouldn’t necessarily help with road feel (other than allowing your arms and legs to focus more on pedal and wheel feedback than wrestling you into the seat), you might consider a harness as a good alternative to a heavily-bolstered seat.

As a 3rd option, I’d bet a good upholstery shop can add some decent foam bolstering for less than you’d spend adding daily-able aftermarket seats, and you wouldn’t lose any of the other functionality.

 

[stevehifi]

Recliners should be better, especially for daily use. But everything I've tried that you can buy is just not holding you really well compare to some good OEM performance seats.

I had Recaro on Evo X and it was great. I feel like it's a conspiracy of some kind. I can't say that Sportster CS is that good and its the most advanced recliner from Recaro (podium holds worse than sportster) ...

I'm waiting for MPP (I hope it won't be too high) coming with their stock based electric seat slider and I will cut head protection from my sim rig Sparco Circuit (that is the best holding seat from all I ever tried short of custom inserts), make holes for 3pt seat belt, relocate lumbar, seat heating and occupancy sensor, reholster into the same white pu leather as Tesla stock, fix to the floor 2 bottom straps for Schroth QuickFit, add fan at the bottom to ventilate it in summer, maybe even move airbag from the stock seat.

And hopefully it will be usable. With thick memory foam paddings it might be usable even for long trips.

There will always be trade offs when a seat solution is not OEM. In our case we don't have much of a choice in going aftermarket. That being said there are alot of options available from OMP, Recaro, Sparco, Corbeau. Coupled with a 4 point harness this would be a great combo for daily driven and track.

Of course a fixed one piece seat is an option too but without the recline feature and the deep entry/exit it may become a nuisance for daily driving.

 

[stevehifi]

I would probably have to go with a reclining option since my wife occasionally drives my car.

That said, while my last race day since getting my Schroths was canceled, wearing the 4pt seems to make a night-and-day difference during even a mildly spirited drive. So, while it wouldn’t necessarily help with road feel (other than allowing your arms and legs to focus more on pedal and wheel feedback than wrestling you into the seat), you might consider a harness as a good alternative to a heavily-bolstered seat.

As a 3rd option, I’d bet a good upholstery shop can add some decent foam bolstering for less than you’d spend adding daily-able aftermarket seats, and you wouldn’t lose any of the other functionality.

That's what I did.. ordered a 4 point Schroth (BMW E90) while I wait for a seat solution. Keep in mind that even with an updated reclining/one piece seat solution, the harness is still important if you want to stay fixed in your seat.

 

[Godmode]

Looking at my video with telemetry data. I was hitting 1.9 G . I prefer a bucket seat on the track. However, something like an M2 seat with a harness is a compromise.

My old S2k didn't need a bucket seat since there was actually no space. It's center console was so close to my legs that it was acting like a bucket seat.

 

[gearchruncher]

Looking at my video with telemetry data. I was hitting 1.9 G .

What kind of tires and mods do you have?
I peak at 1.5G on Hoosiers, and even that is likely a transient peak. I've seen ~2G before on the screen but it's clear from looking at the telemetry that this is just noise.
From what I know you'd need at least 1000lbs of downforce to start hitting anywhere near 2G.

 

[Godmode]

What kind of tires and mods do you have?
I peak at 1.5G on Hoosiers, and even that is likely a transient peak. I've seen ~2G before on the screen but it's clear from looking at the telemetry that this is just noise.
From what I know you'd need at least 1000lbs of downforce to start hitting anywhere near 2G.

The data is coming from tesla itself unless it is inaccurate.

Suspension
Tein Flex Z Coilovers
Eibach Anti-Roll F&R Sway Bar Kit (F: 32mm / R: 22mm)
MPP Cyber Lower Rear Trailing Arms
MPP Front Compression Rod Inserts
MPP Solid Front Lower Control Arm Bearings
Megan Racing Rear Toe Arms
Megan Rear Upper Camber Arms
Megan Rear Upper Trailing Arms

Wheels and Tires
Titan 7 T-S5 - 19x9.5 / +34 / 5x114
275/35ZR-19 HANKOOK VENTUS R-S4

Brakes
Stoptech STR-60 Big Brake Kit | MPP.R - 380mm
MPP Page Mill 2 Piece Rotors - Rear
Pagid RSL Track Brake Pads - Stoptech STR60 - RSL 29 front and rear
Castrol SRF Racing Brake Fluid
Brake Master Cylinder Brace

 

[thesmokingman]

If it's a purpose built track car, ie. rollcage and all, bucket for the win. But on a daily driver, I'd want a recliner. Sometimes you wanna lay it back and chill.

 

[gearchruncher]

275/35ZR-19 HANKOOK VENTUS R-S4

Zero way you are getting 1.9G's on RS4's without massive aero.
The most G's a stock production car has ever hit is about 1.25G, and that's with very sticky tires (911 GT3).
If you really hit 1.9G's, you'd be setting track records all over the place- lap records are all about grip.

Do some other math and you'll see that it's just not happening. Something is up with your logging. You should be seeing numbers like ~1.3G's.

None of that means you don't need a good seat or harness!

 

[Godmode]

Zero way you are getting 1.9G's on RS4's without massive aero.
The most G's a stock production car has ever hit is about 1.25G, and that's with very sticky tires (911 GT3).
If you really hit 1.9G's, you'd be setting track records all over the place- lap records are all about grip.

Do some other math and you'll see that it's just not happening. Something is up with your logging. You should be seeing numbers like ~1.3G's.

None of that means you don't need a good seat or harness!

Then the telemetry data of Tesla itself is inaccurate.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

You need to relate the numbers you see in the logs to what was happening on the track at the time. I've seen mis-reported peaks of 1.9g many times, on road tyres when the car has been over kerbs or hit bumps. It's not the tyres generating 1.9 lateral-Gs.
Track mode logging is very useful, don't get me wrong, but if you want accurate accel/lateral g-force data you really need something like a VBox so you can look at the raw data and apply filtering in the software if necessary to iron out those misleading peaks/glitches.

In terms of the seat, I'd love something with more lateral support but it would need to be practical for daily use (reclining preferably) and comfortable enough on long trips. My days of driving a fully race-prepared car on the roads are long behind me and I don't miss them.

 

[gearchruncher]

Track mode logging is very useful, don't get me wrong, but if you want accurate accel/lateral g-force data you really need something like a VBox so you can look at the raw data and apply filtering in the software if necessary to iron out those misleading peaks/glitches.

You can still do a ton of filtering with what Tesla gives you. First, these 1.9G excursions are usually short, and you can just visually that they are incorrect if you graph them and they're surrounded by a lot of 1.3G data.

Second, Tesla gives you high rate wheel speed and yaw rate. You can back calculate lat and long acceleration from this.

What you can't to is just look at the traction circle on the screen after a session and use the peak shown there as a measurement of what the car can actually do.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

You can still do a ton of filtering with what Tesla gives you. First, these 1.9G excursions are usually short, and you can just visually that they are incorrect if you graph them and they're surrounded by a lot of 1.3G data.

Second, Tesla gives you high rate wheel speed and yaw rate. You can back calculate lat and long acceleration from this.

What you can't to is just look at the traction circle on the screen after a session and use the peak shown there as a measurement of what the car can actually do.

Yes, agreed, I shoud have added "easily", as I've only got as far as importing TM .CSV files into RaceRender and then I have a video reference to work from anyway.
TBH, I usually run a VBox in parallel as I just find it much quicker and easier to pull the file from that and generate graphs and lap comparisons instead of faffing with TM CSVs. Unless there's a data analysis tool I haven't found yet which works with them and allows you to calculate sector times, lap overlays from different sessions etc. etc. I've tried Track Attack too and that wasn't bad but it's still not as quick and easy to do as I'd like. Especially at the track between sessions.

 

[MoreAgain]

Then the telemetry data of Tesla itself is inaccurate.

It is possible that the G-meter you are using is adding lateral and acceleration/deceleration g forces.

 

[gearchruncher]

FYI, This is a pretty great open source tool that our own @Adrian Cockcroft wrote:

Free track mode telemetry viewer

Creating this thread for discussion of the tool, announcements of updates to it, and sharing results at different tracks. For those of you who have Model 3 or Y Performance cars with track mode, the car saves telemetry files and videos. In my spare time over the last few months I've written an...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[gearchruncher]

It is possible that the G-meter you are using is adding lateral and acceleration/deceleration g forces.

I haven't seen anything in the Tesla Track mode that does this, and even if it did, a tire can't do 1.9G total- the traction circle maxes at about 1.3G magnitude.
What @Godmode is likely seeing is the traction circle on the screen, which is a pretty neat tool. It numerically shows max accel in each direction (accel, brake, left turn, right turn). But this is a peak seen since Track mode was turned on- so even a single high sample from doing something like curbs can lead to a high number that would clearly be wrong if you looked at the datalog.

 

[Mash]

There will always be trade offs when a seat solution is not OEM. In our case we don't have much of a choice in going aftermarket. That being said there are alot of options available from OMP, Recaro, Sparco, Corbeau. Coupled with a 4 point harness this would be a great combo for daily driven and track.

Of course a fixed one piece seat is an option too but without the recline feature and the deep entry/exit it may become a nuisance for daily driving.

With MPP slider you have stock easy entrance option to go in/out. Yeah, no recline. But the only time I recline is during watching Netflix while supercharging.

As I've said - I tried all recliners and Sportster CS is the best one, but it's still not good. It's somewhat better than stock, but not significantly enough.

 

[MountainPass]

A little teaser - here's a Sportser CS on the Tesla sliders, with the bottom of the seat 42mm off of the floor at the back, and even less at the front.

It's still a little bit higher than the OEM seat, but certainly as low as you can go with a bolt-on solution. Better pictures coming soon, but I just thought this thread deserved an update on our progress!

I agree with Mash in terms of ultimate body holding, you can't beat a fixed bucket. But for usability day in day out, and with the OEM seatbelt, a reclinable is more convienent. So we'll have options for both.

 

[Vines]

I voted for a fixed version, even though I agree it's not ideal for daily driving.

All of the adjustable ones I have experienced have some play in the mechanism, especially over time. Maybe very expensive or factory ones are better in this respect

If you are putting an upgraded seat in my car, it will be fixed, you are putting a roll cage in as well and we plan on some serious racing.