EF Seating Position

I am 6'1. I don't really fit too well in stock Hondas. See, Honda engineered their cars to drag your 5'2" grandma to the grocery store. To make grandma happy, they had to make the horizontal distance from the steering wheel to the pedals close together, too close together for a 6'1" wannabe racecar driver. They made up for this by having the seat scoot waaay back. That feature is no help whatsoever unless you are a gorilla and your arms are 1.5 times the length of your legs.

The seating position pissed me off at first (with my integra) because I would have to move the seat up further than my legs wanted to go, but still far enough away that my arms weren't at a comfortable spot. So I'd drive around all hunched over with my legs hitting the column. Poop. But I, of course, got used to it and it stopped bothering me to the point where I thought it was comfortable. At least the integra's seat was low enough that my head didn't touch the headliner. That was a plus.

Then I got the civic. Yep, the 4 door civic. That things seating position was WAY worse than the integra's. I think that Honda at least maybe thought someone over 5'3" would've driven the integra a few times, so they made it just comfortable enough to not get sore. But the for civic? Yeah, its made for 5'2" people only. That horizontal distance I was talking about earlier feelt way shorter, the steering wheel was really high (with no tilt. wtf?), and the seats were freaking HIGH. So high that I felt like I could fly out the window around a tight corner, and the seat's bolsters didn't give me any reassurance.

I drove it around anyway. I was already used to the integra's crappy position, so whats a little more poo? Nothing. I adapted quickly and found the position ok for daily driving.

When I went auto crossing it was a different story. My helmet hit the damn headliner. Fuck, that was annoying. That coupled with the absolute lack of side bolsters made auto crossing a large chore. That stupid seat was one of the first things on the car to go. I picked up a nice used NEX fiberglass seat locally for $200. It's a tad lighter than the stock one and a ton lower, even with the stock EF rails we used. On top of that the bolsters on the NEX are muy grande. Slipping, sliding and hitting my head was no more after putting that thing in.

the seat right after I put it in

The next part that got on my nerves was that short pedal-to-steering-wheel distance. I didn't want to hunch over anymore. I also wanted to be able to heel toe with my heel and my toe, and without hitting my leg on the column. So I bought a rice boy steering wheel and made a 1" aluminum spacer to push the wheel closer to the driver. Ahhhh…leg room and no hunching. One inch is all it took.

I made the spacer on our CNC mill then cleaned it up on the lathe. And hey, look, I have a full tank of gas. Very rare.

The only problem at that point was the height of the steering wheel. It was high in the stock configuration, then higher with the addition of the seat, and higher yet after the spacer install. It felt like I was driving a damn bus (a quick bus with go-kart like handling, heh) and sometimes I had to look through the wheel. That was poop. I got fed up and decided to put a tilt column in. I had been wanting to do it for a while but was too lazy because I could cope with the height. The spacer, however, was the straw that broke the camel's back. So I went to Pull-n-Save and grabbed a column off of a 89 LX for $10. Then I put it in. It wasn't low enough with just tilt so I added some washers to lower the column more. You can read about the install here.

Now the seating position kicks mondo ass. My legs are extended, my arms are in the right spot, I can lean back so the seat's bolsters are most effective, and I can see over the steering wheel. It is really really comfortable. Really. When I go from the civic to the integra I am very uncomfortable, but it comes with the territory I guess. I haven't been able to autox with the position the way it is now because the season is over, but I have done some "testing" with it and I love it.

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