[Red_October]

I managed to score a pair of WRX seats for pretty cheap and am wanting to fit them to my Sierra. I know there's a few people on here who have done this and was wanting to know how they went about mounting them.

Did you use WRX runners and modify them of did you modify the seat to accommodate the standard zook runners? Also, as the driver and passenger seat mounting points are different, how did you get around this so that both seats sit at the same level? Ideally, I'd like them mounted directly to the floor as per the passenger side but it looks as though the WRX runners might hit the transmission tunnel? Pics would be great help if possible.

Cheers,
Jimmy.

[v.w.dave]

Wow that will be a tight fit.... My mate has a 2000 rexy I just looked at how wide his seats are you will have to post up some pics once you have them in. Your going to have some rubing on the passanger side and only a few cm between the seats... I have late GTI seats in mine and they are a tight fit and the rexy seats are about 4 or 5 cm wider.

[Red_October]

Yep, they'll be a tight fit alright but I reckon they're one of the most comfortable and supporting seats on the market, so it should be worth the effort. Once i've got a few ideas of how to mount them, I'll post pics of the installation.

[Scrawny]

Not sure if anyone has done I think they will be too wide. I'm happy to be proven wrong tho

[Myles]

Red_October wrote:

Yep, I reckon they're one of the most comfortable and supporting seats on the market.

I reallllly dont know tbout that one.. My mum, My dad and my older sister all have wrx's.. The seats are great for corners and short distances, but once you get on the highway for 2 hours at a time they really start to HURT. Your bum gets numb and your back starts to ache and ahh.. we drove down to nsw a few months back in my dads rex and after about an hour and a half of driving i had to swap to the passenger seat and prop myself up with 6 pillows..

Haha but thats just me

Other then long distances on highways they are Awesome..

[2stroker]

I have WRX seats in one of my LJ's snug fit but good, an LJ is narrower than a sierra.

[Red_October]

Myles wrote:

Red_October wrote:

Yep, I reckon they're one of the most comfortable and supporting seats on the market.

I reallllly dont know tbout that one.. My mum, My dad and my older sister all have wrx's.. The seats are great for corners and short distances, but once you get on the highway for 2 hours at a time they really start to HURT. Your bum gets numb and your back starts to ache and ahh.. we drove down to nsw a few months back in my dads rex and after about an hour and a half of driving i had to swap to the passenger seat and prop myself up with 6 pillows..

Haha but thats just me

Other then long distances on highways they are Awesome..

Currently, with the worn out zook seats, it feels like i'm sitting on a cattle grid so any improvement is welcomed.

2 Stroker, any pics of the runners/how they are mounted?

[Scrawny]

2stroker wrote:

I have WRX seats in one of my LJ's snug fit but good, an LJ is narrower than a sierra.

I knew someone would prove me wrong

[31zook]

Im keen to take all your old zook seats as i need some new ones for The Big Dumb lwb

[Gwagensteve]

I don't know what the obsession is with WRX seats. Maybe it's the faux "shoulder support" look to them. IMHO, they're not a great seat by any stretch of the imagination and whilst they are better than a stock sierra seat, that's not saying much.

I own a 2007 STi and the drivers seat lasted 2 weeks before it was turfed for an SP-G Recaro. I found it unsupportive, flat - generally uncomfortable for any distance. Personally, the pain over long distances isn't due to the hardness of the padding, it's because the seat is the wrong shape. There should be no need for a trade off between a firm seat and long term comfort - Recaro, for example are very firm but very comfortable for long drives. My SP-G is a fixed back shell seat with 3/4" of foam under the bum and it's comfortable even for long drives because it fits me so well, and it's awesomely supportive in corners.

I don't think WRX seats would be too hard to fit into an LJ, but they're not going to be easy to fit in a sierra. The biggest problem will be getting the base to sit low enough. The WRX seat is very tall in the base. (They are also a very bulky seat generally) So it will hard to set the seat low enough. You'll also have to gut the height adjustment mechanism etc and work off the sierra rails.

On the passenger side it should be easy as there's lots more room under the seat.

Still though, I'd sell the WRX seats to some clueless ricer and look for some proper seats like 2nd hand Recaros or something. Another good candidate (if you can be bothered working with the mounts) would be E36 BMW 3 series seats. They are very compact, VERY adjustable and very comfortable. Another option would the mid eighties mazda 929 seats - very adjustable and compact. Apparently MX5 and CRX seats are also a good option for a sierra.

Just my 2C. Just because something was the right price doesn't mean it's a good option for you.

Steve.

[Fatzook]

MX5 seats are excellent dimensionally speaking. You can also get them with speakers in the headrest

[dominator]

i have got MX5 seats. They are fairly comfortable and do fit very well. but i am looking at upgrading to buckets soon because the mx5 seats dont really work well with harnesses. Speakers in the head rest? I could go for some of that.

[foonji]

dominator wrote:

i have got MX5 seats. They are fairly comfortable and do fit very well. but i am looking at upgrading to buckets soon because the mx5 seats dont really work well with harnesses. Speakers in the head rest? I could go for some of that.

Can I have your mx5 seats?

[oozuk]

dominator wrote:

i have got MX5 seats. They are fairly comfortable and do fit very well. but i am looking at upgrading to buckets soon because the mx5 seats dont really work well with harnesses. Speakers in the head rest? I could go for some of that.

More info on the Suzuki in your avatar please

[oozuk]

maby time for a build thread

[Myles]

Hmmm.... MX5 and CRX Seats you reckon.. I kinda need new seats aswell... Drivers is ripped with chunks out of it andddd mechanism that ajusts the tilt is screwed aswell lol..

[Joe]

oozuk wrote:

dominator wrote:

i have got MX5 seats. They are fairly comfortable and do fit very well. but i am looking at upgrading to buckets soon because the mx5 seats dont really work well with harnesses. Speakers in the head rest? I could go for some of that.

More info on the Suzuki in your avatar please

x2 thats looks cool

[Junior_91]

I got these Autotechnica seats for christmas and all i had to do was drill an extra hole in the seat rail and they went straight in





Can take some better pics in the light if you want

[dominator]

joseph wrote:

oozuk wrote:

dominator wrote:

i have got MX5 seats. They are fairly comfortable and do fit very well. but i am looking at upgrading to buckets soon because the mx5 seats dont really work well with harnesses. Speakers in the head rest? I could go for some of that.

More info on the Suzuki in your avatar please

x2 thats looks cool

I could say the same about your avatar.

I bought the car with alot of the work done. (Cheat) So a build thread would kinda be claiming someone elses work.

[Red_October]

Yesterday I got cracking on installing the drivers seat. A few modifications were needed in order for the seat to sit at the same level as the standard seat. This meant drilling out the seat supports which were tacked to the floor.



Once removed, I got to work on modifying the WRX runners. The standard zook runners could be adapted to the wrx seat but a lot more work is required. By using the wrx runners, it meant I could keep the plastic trim at the seat base for a much better looking finish. The front mounts were easy to modify - simply heat with a torch and bend to a right angle.


One of the rear mounts required modification as it was completely the wrong shape and stuck out a lot meaning the seat wouldn't be able to be mounted to the floor as it would interfere with the transmission tunnel. First up was to trim back the mount so that a new mount could be welded on.




I picked up some right angle brackets at Bunnings for nothing. After a few measurements here and there, I attacked it with the angle grinder and presto, a new mount.



It was then welded in place. This was my first attempt at welding. I was also using an ancient stick welder which didn't help but you've got to start somewhere I guess. As it looked like bird poo, I cleaned it up using some quick weld putty for a slightly neater finish. It then received a coat of paint.








As some of you may be aware, the zook floor is extremely thin and tears easily. My standard passenger seat has already torn the floor at one of the mounts. It is for this reason I wanted the seat mounted to something a little sturdier, with back plating under the floor for reinforcement. I used some 1" box tubing to do the trick. Upon doing a mock fitting, the seat sat at the same height as the standard seat. It also gave me room under the seat to store stuff as per the standard zook seats.








The seat was always going to be a tight fit but like the saying says; when there's a will, there's a way. Sitting on the 1" tubing, the seat cleared the transmission tunnel as well as the B pillar...just. I'm pretty happy with the result; the seat sits center to the steering wheel, it's comfortable and there's still plenty of room for stuff under, behind and beside the seat.
The finished result:










Now i've just got to finished the passenger side and she'll be done.

Here's some side-by-side comparison pics between the wrx seat with modified runners and the standard zook seat.



Cheers,
Jimmy.

[Scrawny]

Nice work! Good to see someone putting something together

[Fatzook]

Nice work.

But please do 3 things for your sake.

1. Take the seats out, grind those welds out and get someone who knows how to weld to do them. I mean no offence, but those are what stops you from going throught the windscreen on impact. Its your safety at risk!

2. Weld the box section to the floor. Don't just rely on those sub-grade 4 bolts you got from bunnings.

3. Replace all the remaining bolts with High tensile Grade 8 bolts from a bolt shop. Just because you need a bolt to hold your seat in, and bunning sells bolts, that doesn't mean they are the right ones for your application. Too many people under estimate the role the bolt plays in an application such as this.

But otherwise, nice work

[Red_October]

Cheers Fatzook

Yeah i'll be replacing all the bolts with proper ones next time i'm at the bolt shop. The weld on the mount itself is actually quite strong. It copped it from both sides, the other (not pictured) is a lot better! I think I went overboard with it actually, there's no way it's going to break.

I'm not sure about welding the box to the floor though, it's only a mm or two thin. You don't think four high tensile bolts would hold?

[Fatzook]

Red_October wrote:

Cheers Fatzook

Yeah i'll be replacing all the bolts with proper ones next time i'm at the bolt shop. The weld on the mount itself is actually quite strong. It copped it from both sides, the other (not pictured) is a lot better! I think I went overboard with it actually, there's no way it's going to break.

I'm not sure about welding the box to the floor though, it's only a mm or two thin. You don't think four high tensile bolts would hold?

Yeah for a while.

Don't forget that the floor is only a few mm thick also, and most of the forces being applied to those bolts will be in shear. Your seat base will be moving back and forth with acceleration and braking which will eventually tear the floor. If they are welded however, the movement is limited to the bolts holding the seat to the box, which has the bolts taking tension/ extention forces rather than shear. Bolts are alot more effective this way.

Pete

[oozuk]

dominator wrote:

joseph wrote:

oozuk wrote:

dominator wrote:

i have got MX5 seats. They are fairly comfortable and do fit very well. but i am looking at upgrading to buckets soon because the mx5 seats dont really work well with harnesses. Speakers in the head rest? I could go for some of that.

More info on the Suzuki in your avatar please

x2 thats looks cool

I could say the same about your avatar.

I bought the car with alot of the work done. (Cheat) So a build thread would kinda be claiming someone elses work.

Still good so everybody else can have a peek at what your running,

My build thread is at the bottom of my posts now






SORRY Sorry for the Hijack

[v.w.dave]

nice work. keep us posted on how tight the passanger side is

[Gwagensteve]

I don't want to be rude, but Red_October, but you haven't really installed this seat very well. Some areas where you installation is poor have already been covered, and they are valid. I'm more concerned about the design of the mounts.

A) This isn't a great first welding project, and it's a terrible first welding project for an "ancient stick welder" You should never, ever have to cover up welding with putty on a critical component because it looks like bird poo. The fact you thought you had too indicated you recgnise the welding is below standard.

B) Have a careful look at what you've cut out. You'll notice that it's a fabricated box section that welds into the car in three planes - the inner sill structure, the floor, and the transmission tunnel. The rear mounts also mount on two planes each. You've replaced that with some box that only mounts in one plane.

C) Notice how your rear mounts overhang the box section? All of your body weight (plus G forces in an accident) is being supported by those couple of 3mm thick strips. They're going to bend, if they haven't already. Either gusset them or support them from underneath.

E) You need to heavily reinforce under the floor. IF you sat rocking the seat fore/aft for an hour or so, you'd tear those mounts out of the floor. It's not uncommon for the floor to be cracked badly on the passenger side of sierras, and they have less use than the drivers side.

Please take this criticism the right way. Seats are something you don't want to mess around with. Designing effective, durable modifications is harder than it looks and I don't think this was an appropriate project for your current level of skill. That's cool- we all started somewhere- the problem is, there's no turning back for you now as you have removed the stock attachment points.

Steve.

Steve.

[ZOOKCREW]

Tight fit , but looks great ..

[ajsr]

take it from a ex panel beater that will crack and destroy your floor in side 6 mths if your lucky on a daily car.
and mate I shudder to think what will happen in even a mild crash, but my bet is the tube under the seat rails will bend/colapse in a under 20km/h crash.
the seat looks great but you really need a better support beam front and rear even if its put under the floor pan and it needs to be welded properly by someone that know how to weld.
Im not having a go at you just trying to help.

[Red_October]

Yep, i've got a friend who can help me out with fixing all the strength (and safety) issues. When i've got the money, i'll be getting the floor reinforced on top and bottom and will have it all welded in place. I may as well make the engineers happy at the same time. I'll get piccies up when it's been done properly