That's good info. I also thought the fabric didn't have as nice hand-feel as some of the premium seats I've sat in. I've not taken the fabric off yet to examine the quality of the fiberglass but also have a bit of flex on mine if I lean into it. Curious which vehicle you put yours in, if you did any hammering / cutting / drop floor pan?

One is in a Volvo C30. Big car, fits with tons of room. Currently installing one in an FC RX7. Its getting a 2 inch floor drop to get it fully under the cage.

I have a pair of bimarco seats. Dakar if I remember correctly. Couldn’t get them in an NB with a door panel. Maybe if they were mounted high.
the big problem for me was they were a little to tight for me. I’m a 34” waist.
they’ve never been installed. I’d love to sell them.

So ... I went back and re-read the rules for seats in HPDE for NASA. I was wrong. I thought that, like the belts, the replacement seats had to conform to the relevant rules for race cars with the exception of expiration date. That is not the case. You can, in fact, run any seat so long as it is installed per the manufacturer's instructions (and mounted securely). So you're good to go with these seats, by the letter of the law (for NASA, I don't know about other orgs).

Personally, I've bought used seats from people I trust. They're out of date, but they were a fraction of the price of new. I'm lucky to have an active racing scene near me and am built like a lot of other local racers. That makes it easier, I admit. That said, my car has until recently had more money in suspension and safety than pretty much everything else. Still not turbo. :giggle:

It sounds like regional culture differs - here in the Northeast, NASA /SCCA has less of a presence and locally operated event coordinators run the majority of events. The event operator that has the largest number of events does not have a seat certification requirement so your comment went over my head. There doesn't seem to be a wide selection of local expired seat availability - though admittedly i was kind of looking mid-season, and Greyhound recently stopped their freight shipment service which kind of shut the door on buying larger items outside of the area. Anyway - definitely taking a chance on these seats - but so far am happy with the purchase - will try to mount them Thursday.