Thanks for the response so far, obviously a few recurring points need to be covered here to give a little background as to why this problem exists in the first place and also a little further background on the JCR frames as an engineering solution.
First of all, a little background as to why the seat is so high (which has also been confirmed by Recaro themselves via email and discussed on a couple of other forums). When making a new variant, a manufacturer must submit and re-homologate any significant changes to the vehicle. This costs significant money, and one of the areas that all manufacturers will avoid, is resubmitting the car for full crash homologation. It costs a huge amount of money, and any deviation from the original vehicle crash performance (i.e. if the RS failed it’s crash test) could lead to Ford being prevented from selling any Focus Mk3 variant until a pass is achieved. When homologating, the occupant hip point (so basically where your bum sits) must be at a defined height within the car which must accommodate the average person. This means that sat at the reference seating position, the driver must have a clear view of the road, be correctly constrained by the seat belt, and positioned in an optimum position for the airbags. Despite all this, if you offer a height adjustment mechanism, the lower and upper heights don’t have to comply with this regulation. Because the CS seat lacks height adjustment though, it has to sit at the crash reference point despite the fact a standard, height adjustable seat can go lower. If Ford had lowered the CS seat, they would need to resubmit the car for crash testing as the reference seating position would have changed.
The amount the bracket lowers the seat by, will not exceed the amount offered by the standard seat, hence the crash performance will be the same as a standard seat in it’s lowest position, however, it’s up to the owner to assess whether they have a sufficient view of the road ahead. This would be no different to lowering an adjustable height seat, and is why we have offered two potential seat heights within the design. (I’m 5’9 and find the seating position to be heavily compromised)
For the bracket itself, we have calculated the relevant strengths vs the standard mounting, and either matched or exceeded this, and the mechanism will be a Recaro supplied sliding runner as supplied by them for the fitting of any of their aftermarket seats. This assembly will match the performance of any aftermarket seat mounting kit offered by Recaro or any other seat manufacturer.
With regards warranty, the whole vehicle warranty is unlikely to be affected. A manufacturer would only have reason to deny a warranty claim where they believe a modification has caused a component failure. For instance, flashing an unapproved engine map into the car would void your engine warranty, but it would not change the warranty for the infotainment, glazing, interior or paint/body etc.
I hope that helps to clear up any questions at this stage but please feel free to ask away.
Regards
Jonny
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