Cobra Seat Fitting Guide

How to fit Base Mounted Seats

Cobra seats are either “base mounted” or “side mounted”. This simply means that they either have holes in the bottom of the seat for fixings to be attached to, or holes in the side for fixings to be attached to. We’re going to start by talking about how to fit a base mounted seat.

Base mounted seats are typically recliners or they are fixed back seats from our range for classic cars. These seats have four holes in their base - one in each corner. On a Cobra Seat these holes are spaced at 290mm side-to-side and 330mm from front-to-back.

A base mounted seat can be fitted to a car in one of two ways. The first way of fitting them is to fix them to a tailored subframe. Subframes are designed for a specific vehicle. They use the vehicle’s original bolt points without the need for any additional modifications. You can simply fit the subframe to your car, and fix the base mounted seat directly to the subframe. In the majority of cases a subframe will include runners that will allow you to move the seat backwards and forwards.

Cobra offer a small range of tailored subframes for popular vehicles. You can view the range here. It is worth noting that Corbeau also offer a range that covers some other vehicles - in most cases the bolt pattern for the seats is the same for Cobra and Corbeau, therefore these sub frames are also suitable for Cobra Seats.

The other way of fitting base mounted seats to your car is to fix them to a set of runners. Runners will fit directly to your base mounted seat, and will allow you to move the seat backwards and forwards however they are not tailormade for a specific vehicle, so some modifications are likely to be required in order to fit them to your car. In a lot of cases, especially for classic cars where the seats tend to sit very low to the ground, the runners can be fixed directly to the floor of the car. If additional height is required then a box or framework of some description will need to be fabricated that can be securely fixed to the floor of the car and the seat runners.

Our Cobra Seat Runners are 24.5mm high and offer a smooth running motion backwards and forwards.

Double Locking Runners Installation Guide

  1. Remove bolts from seat base and place these to one side as you will require these later.

  2. Make sure you are aligning the runners with the correct bolt hole pattern of the seat, otherwise the handle will not fit correctly.

    Cobra runners are designed for seats with a side-to-side hole spacing of 292mm or 405mm for the narrow and wide versions respectively, and front to back hole spacing of 330mm.

  3. Extend both runners as shown to expose the mounting holes. You will need to use the handle to unlock the mechanism and separate the upper and lower parts of the runner.
  4. Take one of the extended runners and place it on the base of the seat. The wider part of the runner is the top section and this fixes to the seat (see exploded diagram for details). The ‘clips’ for the runner handle should be closest to the front of the seat - you should end up with the handle at the front of the seat with the handle releasing the mechanism and allowing you to move the seat backwards and forwards when you pull it up.
  5. Insert the seat bolt through one end of the runner and lightly tighten.
  6. Extend the runner in the opposite direction and repeat step 5, then fully tighten both bolts. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the opposite runner.
  7. Once both runners are in place and the bolts have been tightened the handle is ready to be fitted. Locate the handle onto the pin on one side of the runners. Compress the handle and locate the handle onto the pin on the opposite side. The handle should sit inside the clips on both sides of the runners.

Please note that the rectangular washers in the runner bolt kit are to be used to fix the rear bolts of the runners to either a subframe or the chassis of the car (see exploded diagram).

When fitting seats with runners into your car we always recommend fitting the runners to the seat first, as detailed in the steps above. To bolt the runners to your car’s chassis or subframe move the seat as far forwards as possible on the runners then use the bolts provided with the runners to fix the runners to the chassis or subframe. Once the rear bolts are secured move the seat backwards on the runners and repeat the process for the front bolts.

How to fit Side Mounted Seats

Side mounted seats, as the name suggests, are fitted to your car using side mounts that fix to holes in the side of the seat. Side mounts are bolted to the holes in the side of the seats, they are then bolted to the floor underneath the seat (i.e. the side mount wraps inwards, under the seat at a 90 degree angle). All competition seats are fitted to vehicles in this way - if you require FIA approval then the seat must be side mounted, and it must fix directly to the floor of the vehicle. 

We offer a range of different side mounts. Our Cobra Steel Side Mounts are available in 4mm Steel, 5mm Alloy, L Shaped Steel, L Shaped Alloy and 4mm Tall, as well as side mounts designed especially for use with the Cobra Nogaro seat.  The L Shaped side mounts are designed for situations where space is restricted and you need the side mounts to be as narrow as possible. All of the Cobra Side Mounts we offer are FIA Approved.

Cobra 5mm Alloy Side Mounts

How to fit Harnesses and Seat Belts

Harnesses should be fitted to the vehicle’s existing seat belt mounting points whenever possible. The lap straps should utilise the mounting point usually used for the front seat's lap strap. The shoulder straps should utilise the rear seat's lap strap mounting points, which are most directly behind the front seat.

From the shoulder straps to the anchorage point at the back of the car you are looking to achieve a 45 degree angle (when viewed from the side).

The harness should be anchored directly to mounting points on the vehicle. They should never be mounted to the seat itself. If for some reason it is not possible to fit the harness to the existing mounting points, then new anchorage points must be installed on the shell or the chassis of the vehicle. For the shoulder straps these points must be as near as possible to the centre line of the rear wheels. Shoulder straps can also be fixed to the rollcage or a reinforcement bar by means of a loop.

Once in position, you need to ensure that the harness is not in contact with any sharp edges that could cut or chafe the webbing of the harness.

For more detailed information on the installation and use of different types of harness please use the links shown below:


For road cars, especially recliners, you will probably want to continue using seat belts rather than a harness with your new Cobra Seats. This is quite straightforward - seat belt pretensioners should simply be attached to the seat framework.

Cobra Seats with TRS Harnesses