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Tall Driver options
Kriss - 5/11/07 at 10:20 PM

Hi all,

After selling my clio v6 and securing my daily driverr wagon, I am now in a position to look very closely and purchase my kit car.

Loving the Mac#1's, MNR's, Westies and MK Indys etc.

Wanted to see if you guys could list me options to accomodate for me being nearly 6'5".

If people willing to post could also give some sort of detail as to how easy/hard/whats involved for each option that would be great.

I shall be buying prebuilt pre owned and have upt £8k to spend.

I know composite seats are an option. any thing to be done with steering colum height, smaller s wheel, relocating pedals??

thansk in advance. Any localish to me who wished to sell the "experince" of a kit car to me please feel free. I had a mega test drive in a 1600 cc caterham 7 SV which i loved!


gingerprince - 5/11/07 at 10:24 PM

Hi

You should fit in MK, Mac#1 or MNR without too much trouble - they all have ample space (I'm 6'4" and my seat isn't fully back in my MK).

I do have a small steering wheel to allow my legs under though, and fibreglass seat bolted to floor rather than rails. Obviously you'd struggle with a Sierra wheel and plump padded seats

quote:
Originally posted by Kriss
Hi all,

After selling my clio v6 and securing my daily driverr wagon, I am now in a position to look very closely and purchase my kit car.

Loving the Mac#1's, MNR's, Westies and MK Indys etc.

Wanted to see if you guys could list me options to accomodate for me being nearly 6'5".

If people willing to post could also give some sort of detail as to how easy/hard/whats involved for each option that would be great.

I shall be buying prebuilt pre owned and have upt £8k to spend.

I know composite seats are an option. any thing to be done with steering colum height, smaller s wheel, relocating pedals??

thansk in advance. Any localish to me who wished to sell the "experince" of a kit car to me please feel free. I had a mega test drive in a 1600 cc caterham 7 SV which i loved!


mookaloid - 5/11/07 at 10:27 PM

You should fit in all of those cars - depending mainly on the type of seat and the positioning of the seat.

Hard to say exactly which ones will fit you best as there are more factors than just your height.

Try a few and you'll get to know what you like the feel of

Cheers

Mark


bigrich - 5/11/07 at 10:31 PM

Mac#1 have a 6 ft5 customer who i dont think will mind me saying is over 21 st and has size 14 feet and he is comfortable in his 9r.

as also said both mk and mnr will probably be the same

Rich


LBMEFM - 5/11/07 at 10:33 PM

Hi
I am 6ft-6in and thought it would be a problem to find a 7 type car. Caterham's were a tight fit and I eventually decided on a MK Indy. Plenty of room particulary with the composite seats fitted, these are also useful as not having wet weather gear they are easy to dry if they get rained on. If you want to test a 7 contact the manufacturers, get their addresses from the net or buy a "Kit Car" mag, they are more than wiling to show you their cars.
Barry


zxrlocost - 5/11/07 at 10:47 PM

Hi Kriss I have some cars you could come and have a sit in etc Im in the west mids

although I only do Bike Engine ones so if you loved the 1600 Caterham it would be an experience with an R1 engine for you.

u2u me if you want to come up

ta chris


jollygreengiant - 6/11/07 at 04:48 AM

You could also try a Luego Viento.


fesycresy - 6/11/07 at 08:27 AM

The easy answer is to buy this


<-------------------


Johnmor - 6/11/07 at 09:24 AM

This may be on the market in the spring time, other projects are tempting me !!
:


TimC - 6/11/07 at 10:07 AM

Can anyone recommend a small 7-type car where I don't have to mount the seat a foot from the rear bulkhead as frankly it looks a touch ridiculous.

I am just kidding of course.

TC (5'7"

P.s. Fesycresy's car is a top quality build!


Kriss - 6/11/07 at 01:11 PM

wow cheers for the all responces. I am looking to by in Q1 2007. It sounds great that I can in fact most probably be accomodated for in the cars I like.

I have seen many vids of BEC chris but never seen one, driven one or sat in one. The appeal of sequential gear boxes sounds awesome but I have read that reliability is an issue along with running them on the road. I estimate 2-3 track days a year but plenty of sunday b road blasts.

Can anyone shed a non bias point of view on this?

Kriss


BenB - 6/11/07 at 06:30 PM

I went to a show having decided I wanted to build LiveAxle Crossflow powered Seven (of one flavour or another)...

ended up building an IRS BEC powered by a ST1100.

Cheap power, nice reliable gearboxes... only downside is you don't get the crazy Bhps/ton of some of the BECs. Its more modest. Still, 105Bhp in a 500kg car is enough for me at the moment (especially when the torque is good)....

(6 ft 4, 34inch leg, STM / Aries Locost- no problems!! Though the seat is as far back as I could get it and I bought a seat that had the exact same layback angle as the car!!)

I'd say try sitting in a few cars, take a few rides out as a passenger etc etc... For B-roads and track days BEC rule!! For long journeys CEC are often a more attractive proposition, for driving in town, going shopping, REVERSING CECs win hands down...


zxrlocost - 6/11/07 at 08:37 PM

Hi Kriss BEC's are perfectly reliable the only people who know all about how unreliable they are, are the ones who have never owned one or any kind of car like it in there life..

PS once you go out in a Bike Engine car anf bang of the rev limiter at 14,500rpm clutchless upshift into the next gear youll understand whats it all about

ta chris


hobbsy - 6/11/07 at 09:01 PM

I've got a (BEC ) Fisher Fury and I'm about 6'5" and fit ok. One thing to bear in mind when people say they fit ok is where you height is split (legs vs body length). Someone same height as me (or maybe slightly shorter) once sat in mine and his head was well over the top of the windscreen so must have had a long body. I've got 34" inside leg (though will buy 36" leg jeans if available!).

My roll bar is high enough but only just.


Kriss - 7/11/07 at 10:05 AM

I must say that from the videos I have see the gear changes and blips just sound so savage in BEC's. When I had a Caterham test drive the other caterham models I sat in we short of space between the back of the steering wheel and my knees - esp on the clutch!

What can be done to get around this problem? spacers on the hub?

Also, maybe not the right place to ask but you all seem to know your stuff - How does the mechanics etc of paddle shift work on a BEC? And whats the difference between rods and wires?

So many questions - such a novice!!!


zxrlocost - 7/11/07 at 05:50 PM

basically you make up a pivot system that goes up and across to the paddle real simple stuff


zxrlocost - 7/11/07 at 05:50 PM

basically you make up a pivot system that goes up and across to the paddle real simple stuff


Kriss - 8/11/07 at 07:06 PM

ZXRLOCOST - I got your u2u cheers. I replied today. Sorry for so many questions.

Thanks for all the info so far guys.


iank - 8/11/07 at 08:35 PM

If you can put up with a binbag+foam racing seat there are very few 7's even a 6.5 footer won't fit in as you can arrange to have your bum 1cm from the floor and shoulders 1cm from the back cockpit panel.

Not the prettiest things in the world but very comfortable, very very light and very safe.

See http://www.carbuilders.info/pages/DIY for more details/links.