Baby It’s Cold Outside

I had a few free hours today to work on the car. Nothing Crazy, but some good stuff to check off the list. I installed my new Differential drain plugs, which are now 14mm allens instead of 10mm, so I had to use a special setup to install them because there isn’t really enough room to use a huge 14mm tool with the spare tire well. I filled the diff with fluid so that I wouldn’t forget to do it later down the road.

Then I cleaned and installed the exhaust heat shields underneath the car. Used some Purple Power and a lot of elbow grease with a brass bristled brush. The heatshield looks almost brand new now, which is good because it looked like poo before.

Then I had to replace one of the brake pipes from the Master Cylinder to the ABS unit because the E30 M3 uses a special pipe with two different size fittings. So I replicated one of the pipes I had already bent, and fixed a couple of the shortcomings of my previous bending job.

Once the pipe was installed, I started working on a couple other little things that needed to be done. I tidied up the engine wiring underneath the intake manifold. You can see in the picture of the plugged coolant hose that I installed the Intake Manifold braces as well. So why did I have to plug a hose? because I am not going to use the throttle body de-icing system. This car will never see snow, and will only see freezing temperatures if I get caught out in a freak weather event.

I’ve got some A/C Parts on the way, as well as a Power Steering Pump and a couple other tidbits. I plan on having one evening this coming week to work on the car, but we’ll see how the schedule works out.

Side Plate Comparison

So, these aren’t really new products, but we hope to bring new information to our customers to help them make decisions about how to mount their racing seat.  There are infinite possibilities on how to do mount your seat – you can use all off the shelf components in any combination that works, or you can fabricate something yourself and everything in between.  The aim of this document is to shed some light on the intricacies of the side plates that we sell a lot of so you can see what will work for your situation.

Please note, that these plates are specified to fit specific situations by each manufacturer.  We have found that because the side plate mounting hole dimensions are the same on virtually all racing shell seats, that you can use different side plates from different manufacturers to fit your specific application.  We mention what each plate is designated for only to help you find the specific plate when ordering, not to guide your choice.  You must use the measurements we provide to figure out what works in your situation.

Brey Krause Side Plates

These side plates are very often used when we do Porsche 996 installs because you can buy off the shelf a whole lot of parts that work together to create a safe and clean installation of everything – seat, harness, and fire extinguisher.  But that is far from the end of what they are good for.  These side plates have a provision for an inboard lap belt mount which is something most other plates only dream of.  This sets them apart from the other side plates.

This particular set of side plates is the R9073 plate, which according to Brey Krause is specific to the Cobra Imola II GT and Sparco Evo 2 Seat.  We’ve used it for Suzuka GT as well, and think that it probably will work for other seats too.

Keep in mind that there are other Brey Krause Plates available as well. We hope to bring you more dimensions on those very soon.

Cobra Side Plates

The Cobra Side plates are made of aluminum and are very beautiful. They feature a bend which is usually a great thing if you are trying to mount a narrow seat, or if your car has wide mounting locations. Obviously we sell the most of these to Cobra Seat owners, but we also use them for other applications.

We will continue to add information to this post as we have time.