Mini Stock Seat Install - The Best Seat in the House

Kirkey Racing recommends four bolts in the lower seat area (two on the flat layback section and two on the under-thigh area) and two just below the shoulder belt area. Here, you can see Pete measuring for two of the four lower mounting holes.

Quick work with the drill and some time with a cut-off wheel and we had a lower seat mount. After drilling the 1x1-inch square bar and test fitting it, Pete welded nuts to the lower portion of the piece, which will allow us to simply set the seat in place and drop in two bolts to install it, without fiddling under the seat for the loose nuts.

Pete set the height of the rear lower bar, made sure it was square against the lower horizontal door bar...

...and positioned it into the correct place for the bottom of our seat. Take your time here and make sure this is in the correct spot or you’ll never be comfortable in your car!

With the flat portion of the Kirkey layback seat bolted in place, you can see that the lower-thigh portion sits up approximately 3.5 inches from the lower seat hoop. This design gives the seat the proper 18-degree layback (when level) and positions your legs into a comfortable spot.

Unfortunately, due to the angle of the leg support, using a flat bar similar to the rear-mount wasn’t possible with our Mustang. However, using a piece of round tubing, a nut, bolt, and a washer, we were able to fabricate two stanchions to secure the seat.

Simply position the nut halfway into the tube and lightly tighten the bolt and washer in place. Then, with everything square and level, weld the nut and washer to the tube. It may not look high-tech, but it creates the prefect stanchion for mounting the seat.

Cut to approximately 3.5 inches in total length, Pete tacked the homemade stanchion in place and threaded a bolt in through the existing seat holes. One additional stanchion for the right side of the seat and our four-bolt base was complete.

With the bottom in place, we moved to securing the top of the seat, using the provided holes located just below the shoulder belt area.

Just like the rearmost lower seat mount, we measured the seat and cut a 1x1-inch tube to fit within the seat back. Then, Pete measured the distance between the boltholes, marked them, and drilled the square tubing.

Again, just like the lower mount, we welded nuts to the back of the square tube and tightened the mount to the seat using a pair of bolts. This design will allow for easy removal and a clean install. Here, Pete measured the distance to our main hoop horizontal bar…

…and fabricated a rear support out of another piece of 1x1 square tubing. You could use one here if you felt like it, but Pete and Editor Fisher wanted to build two— one for each bolt hole—which reduces the risk of failure and the likelihood of an injury.

The 18-degree Kirkey layback seat ships with a well thought out and nicely engineered head restraint, which is adjustable based on driver height and visual preference. According to the instructions, you want to install the restraint even with your cheekbone and low enough to see over. It looks a bit low here, so we may move it up once we install the harness and get in our final driving position.

With the seat firmly installed and in its final position, we got to work on the four driver-side horizontal door bars. As you can see, these mimic the bars found in all NASCAR race cars and trucks (hence the name, NASCAR bars) and intrude into the stock door cavity to help protect the driver during a side impact or rollover.

Looking into the car from the driver-side fender, you can see the topmost NASCAR-style door bar tacked in place and the 18-degree containment seat in place. We still have two additional NASCAR-style bars to install (evenly spaced between the lower and upper bar), along with a couple other structural bars and a whole bucketful of gussets to weld, but by the next time you see the City Boy, the ’cage will be complete and ready for action!