Hello All,

has anyone looked into moving the steering wheel closer to the driver yet? I would like to have the wheel some 5 cm closer to me while driving actively to not have to reach when turning the wheel in tighter bends, which as you know is not good for car control.

I have not looked into the feasibility of this yet though.

BR Fredric

 

I haven't adjusted mine in a long time, but doesn't it have powered up/down and in/out?

 

Yes, mine has about 10cm of in/out travel. The seat memory will store the setting.

 

I think the OP is looking for additional movement closer to the driver. If the OP has long legs, I could see the desire as it's often a compromise of seating position for people with long legs.

 

Hello guys,

I am aware of the built-in adjustment, yes

I would however like the wheel closer than that. For active and track driving you might know that the recommended distance is with your shoulders planted to the back rest and almost straight arms you shall be able the rest your wrists on top of the steering wheel. And in the F-Type that is not the case, at least not for me. This is btw true for quite many sports cars it seems. I sat in a Ferrari F12 the other day, and it had the same issue. I think e.g. the Mercedes AMG GT does not.

BR Fredric

 

I'm not aware of any extenders for the F-Type that fit "out of the box". I don't know if there are any steering columns in the Jag/Rover family that would match where there might already be a product available. If you do some searching, you'll see that there are owners of other types vehicles asking similar questions as it does come up often. It would be 'possible', to machine a spacer that could do what you need. I would wager most of the wiring likely has enough slack for an additional .5-1 inch.

I'm not familiar with Stockholm to know what shops are around, but I would wager you could find a shop that does fabrication for race cars that would be able to do a spacer and install. Just to note, the airbags are designed to work at certain distances. While I wouldn't expect a short extension to cause any negative affects of airbag function, there is a possibility it could.

 

I have had a look in the workshop manual now, and it is the below two cable harnesses which connect between the upper steering column section and the steering wheel. If one has heated steering wheel there is also a slip ring for the high power heating, which makes that case a little more difficult. I do not however, so I can ignore that.

It should be easy enough to add 1:1 cable extensions to the two harnesses to extend their lengths, and I would expect that not to cause any problems. The actual steering column extension should not be very complicated to fabricate. The biggest "problem" will be the aesthetics I guess.

I will contact the Velocity AP European motorsport partner David Appleby Engineering about this to see what they say. Stuart, if you read this, have you maybe already discussed the matter?

 

Good to see another driver who likes the steering wheel fairly close!
In my normal driving position with my hands at 10 and 2 my arms are bent around 75 degrees, whereas with 90% of young male drivers I notice they are sat a mile back, almost laying down and with arms fully outstretched to barely reach the steering wheel. Even worse with movie and TV scenes showing people driving, with almost all of them regardless of age or gender driving with straight arms. I really struggle to see how they than can possibly steer properly in that position.
I'm 183 cm (6' 0" in the old money) and my seat is a good 10 cm (around 4") forward of all the way back and my backrest is almost vertical.

 

Must have short arms/legs and a long torso. At 6'-2" I have the seat all the way back (not as far as I would like) and my wrist easily dangled over the steering wheel when adjusted to the center position. However, I have plenty of headroom to wear my steampunk hat.

 

Nup, long arms and legs and a relatively short torso!

 

Sounds like me: spider monkey.

 

Post back if you are able to get a solution. I'm sure there are a few others that would be interested.