Seat Height ?

chrispx · 11-10-2006, 03:28 AM

Greetings,

I've got an 82 SC sunroof coupe and I want to change to a later style of seat. I've found a pair out of an 87 Carrera (electric). The seller claims that Porsche changed the way that they mounted their seats in 87 and these will sit too high in my SC allowing for little head room. I'm sure that someone here has done this swap. Are the sellers claims true?

Thanks

Chris

PcarPhil · 11-10-2006, 04:11 AM

It's the seat rails that changed the most. The Carrera seats are slightly different but they'll mount to your SC rails no problem.

Also, you could reuse your SC sliders with the Carrera seats to gain another 1/4" of headroom. Doing this would possibly require drilling a new hole in the SC sliders.

Good luck!

PcarPhil · 11-10-2006, 04:17 AM

Oh yeah...when I swapped a pair of '85 seats into my '80 the seats themselves allowed me to sit a little lower than stock '80 seats. I went further by mounting the seats directly to the seat rails (gaining another inch of headroom) and also removing some seat foam to get even lower.

IMO the '87 seats won't sit any higher than your '82 seats in your SC.

jtfreels · 11-10-2006, 05:40 AM

My drivers seat (82SC) is a 4 way electric from a Carrera, it is definitely higher than the passenger seat. Less head room.
The motors have not been powered (yet) so not sure if I could get it a bit lower or not.

Anybody done there own power to the seat?

Jay

bkreigsr · 11-10-2006, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jtfreels
My drivers seat (82SC) is a 4 way electric from a Carrera, it is definitely higher than the passenger seat. Less head room.
The motors have not been powered (yet) so not sure if I could get it a bit lower or not.

Anybody done there own power to the seat?

Jay

I've done power to a pair of RS-A seats in my 73. You can ditch the 14 pin connector and wire a single hot up from the fuse panel to one seat then jump over the tunnel to the other. Run a ground back to the stud under the left hood hinge. Has not been a problem, so far (2 yrs).
note: RS-A seats are only 4-way adjustable and not heated.
Bill K

Danny_Ocean · 11-10-2006, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jtfreels
My drivers seat (82SC) is a 4 way electric from a Carrera, it is definitely higher than the passenger seat. Less head room.
The motors have not been powered (yet) so not sure if I could get it a bit lower or not.

Anybody done there own power to the seat?

Jay

I temporarily hooked up electric to my seats before installing. There appears to be a height adjustment which raises/lowers the seating platform. I won't know for sure until I get them in the car, however.

Head416 · Head416's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by Kaefer
I went further by mounting the seats directly to the seat rails (gaining another inch of headroom) and also removing some seat foam to get even lower.

What do you mean by this? Aren't the seats already mounted to the rails? I've never removed one of these seats so I'm sure I'm missing something. I sure could use another inch.

felix_browne · 11-10-2006, 08:19 AM

the seats get bolted to sliders and then those are attached to the rails to allow for forward/back movement. if it is only you that will be driving the car and have no need for the front to back adjustability, loose the sliders and bolt the seats to the fixed points on the rails.

PcarPhil · 11-10-2006, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by felix_browne
the seats get bolted to sliders and then those are attached to the rails to allow for forward/back movement. if it is only you that will be driving the car and have no need for the front to back adjustability, loose the sliders and bolt the seats to the fixed points on the rails.

Yep, what felix said.

I was working on this last weekend and I'll be doing more this weekend, so I'll try and take some pics.

Basically here's what my situation is:
-with stock '80 seats my head would constantly brush/hit the sunroof cross bar. Very annoying.
-I had an extra pair of '85 Carrera seats to mess with (didn't want to hack my stock seats).
-The Carrera sliders are taller than SC sliders.
-I ended up not using sliders - I positioned the Carrera seat, marked the SC seat rails, drilled a hole, and mounted the seat.
-This weekend I'm working on a brace for the rear of the seat since it overhangs the SC rails without silders.
-I also took apart the Carrera seat and removed about 1.0 - 1.5" of foam in the center cushion, then reassembled the seat. Do a search on Miata.net for seat foamectomy to get an idea of the concept.

By doing all the above my head is about .75" - 1.0" below the sunroof crossbrace. It's sooooooo nice having headroom! Still not enough for a helmet - that will require removing the SC seat rails completely. An added bonus with my modified Carrera seat is now the side bolsters are taller and more supportive - similar to a sport seat.