Head Room

Jeff Higgins · 03-30-2004, 04:33 PM

Hello everyone; as you probably noticed, this is my first post. I have just recently joined the ranks of 911 owners with the purchase of a '72 911T. So, here I go with my first question: what to do about headroom? I am right at six feet tall and find it difficult to achieve a proper upright seating position while maintaining clearance for my noggin. It is almost impossible with my bare head; absolutely impossible when wearing a helmet. If I recline the seat back enough to clear my helmeted head under the roof, while maintaining my prefered distance from the pedals, I have to reach uncomfortably far to the wheel. If I move the seat forward so that I can comfortably reach the wheel, my knees hit the bottom of the dash. Is there any way to lower the seat, such as aftermarket seat rails or the like? The seats may not be original to the car; while they are Porsche seats, they appear to be from a newer car (I'm not sure what the '72's had). They are the mechanically adjustable (lever under the front for fore/aft, dial on the side for angle) high backed seats with the built-in headrest, if that makes a difference in what options I have. Anyway, if you need more information to help me out, let me know. Thanks in advance for your help.

azasadny · azasadny's Garage

Jeff,
I'm 6'1" and have a '74 911 Targa with later model (probably 928) seats. I've never had a clearance problem. I have never tracked the car, so I don't know what a helmet would do, but even with the old, stock '74 seats, I have never had a problem with head room.

jyl · jyl's Garage

Search for the thread titled "FK seats". Somewhere around page 4 there is a discussion about headroom using stock and aftermarket seats.

briansc · 03-30-2004, 05:20 PM

6'5" in SC. Found driving OK but a little too close to the roof. Could only think of wearing a hat. When I tried to use a helmet, my head jambed against the ceiling and I was unable to turn my head so - Had my wrench cut out the seat mounting rails and build up new ones at the very base of the seat mounting boxes. I can barely get a thin wrench below the new rail. Installed a Sparco EVO2 and can now terrorize the DE instructors and autocross workers.
Not an inexpensive solution, but I really wanted to be able to DE the car.

Jadams1 · Jadams1's Garage

Non sunroof coupes have more headroom than coupes with sunroofs. I am 6' 2" and have room to spare.

GrindingGears · 03-30-2004, 06:27 PM

Welcome to the board, you'll find a wealth of information here.

Many of us have the same head room problem (me included). The three ways to solve the problem are:
1) Lower you seat rails.
2) Buy after market seats, sometimes can gain up to an inch of headroom.
3) Non-sunroof car, delete the sunroof.

This issue has been dicussed a number of times and a search under "headroom" should yield more information and solutions than you'll be able to handle.

Goodluck.

My solution (weather permitted), open the sunroof!

Jeff Higgins · 03-31-2004, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by GrindingGears
This issue has been dicussed a number of times and a search under "headroom" should yield more information and solutions than you'll be able to handle.

Goodluck.

You are certainly right about that; there are something like 129 threads containing "head room". I never really have figured out how to effectively use the search features on these kinds of forums. I browsed through several of these threads before asking and found some great information. I do, however, seem to spend a great deal of time sifting through unrelated threads that just happen to have my key word buried in them. Anyway, like I said, I did find some great information. It looks like lowering the seat rails will be where I try first. Unfortunately, with the cutting and welding involved, I won't be able to get it done in time for my upcoming driver skills class.