Gutting the OEM seats?
 

As a budget alternative to lighter seats, does anyone have any idea how much weight could be saved by removing the airbags/electronics in the OEM seats?

5-10lbs each seat maybe???

you will never notice that difference in weight translate into increased performance... IMO, leave them the way they are, shave weight elsewhere

If you are on a budget and tracking the car.. playing with safety item to shave weight is a very bad idea....

Agreed. I would look elsewhere to save weight. For a dedicated track car, you could remove the audio equipment and a/c to save a lot more than 10 lbs.

I understand the safety concerns, but its no less safe than swapping to buckets, which are available through the dealership. But if the assemblies only weight a few pounds, then its not really worth the trouble i suppose. But 10 lbs? Do that in 10 areas of the car and thats 100lbs.

Bucket seat are made stronger, and in a different fabric to absorb impact.

And when i say do touch the safety equipement, it is because it works as a whole.. Either you take off everything and make a cage, bucket, harness, head restraint seat, or nothing.. This is my opinion when it comes to safety..

seat airbag wasn't that heavy,


you're going to have to remove the seat belts and inner brake pads if you really want to feel a difference

so, i should still be able to stop with just the outer brake pads then? sounds good. but then again now that i think about it, driving my car at a race track seems too unsafe anyway, so im gona stop doing that altogether. oh and thanks for all the posts about how much the airbags weigh. oh and where can can i get ahold of this fabric that absorbs impact? sounds pretty ground braking.

Switching to a fixed back seat would get you better results but doing that in a car without roll over protection is not something I would do. For those of us that build our cars around a rule set of what you can and can not do to your car, for me in STX for example we have a seat weight limit (I won't get into the history of that rule haha) for 25 pounds. IF the stuff in the seats got them closer to that weight it would be an effective thing to do. 10 pounds a seat put them at about 25, or close enough for the lack of cost I would be happy.

What are you wanting to do with the car? That's what you have to ask yourself. So many people just randomly add and remove things from their car. For your goal, is that 5-10 worth it or should you just save weight else where, and if you aren't building to a ruleset, you have plenty of places to remove it more effectively without messing with personal safety.

thanks for the informative post. i just track my car for fun, kind of compete against my friends and what not. i realize for many that is not a reason to remove a safety item like an airbag. im just looking around at different ways to save weight. i was hoping someone might have the weights of the airbags, but unfortunately i think im the first idiot to think of this lol. if i ever get around to taking them apart and weighing them out of curiosity ill post the info in this thread.

A billion times over.

Here's something I posted the other day as it relates to getting a rollbar in a Miata. The stock seats in those cars are pretty low and you can very easily hit your head on the bar in a collision.

Summary: If you replace one thing, you need to replace everything. And even then you're probably not helping for a street car. If it's a track-only car with HANS etc. then go for it. All of it.

Sold one of my miatas to a friend of mine years ago that had a seat and rollbar with padding on it. He took the seat out and ended up getting in a wreck and hitting his head on the bar. Luckily it was padded.. somewhat..

If you're just tracking for fun, there is no real reason to shave weight by gutting the seat because you will not feel the difference, since the seat bracket is where most of the weight is. Plus the stock seats holds you in pretty well during turns.

The stock tires and pads are crappy (the pads don't even last more than 2 sessions at Laguna Seca) so I would definitely look into getting better tires and pads and good DOT4 brake fluid if you haven't already done so. This is what I did right after I got my car because I know I will be tracking it. I already did 3 track days within the first 3000 miles on the car with just tires, pads, lines and fluids.

This is a great kit to start off with and you can probably find it cheaper elsewhere http://www.evasivemotorsports.com/mm...Fc1hfgodz1sArw

Good luck and stay safe.

One of my customer died this summer at Mont tremblant.. Porsche GT3 RS 2008, with factory seat and race harness, caged car, hans device! No head restraint seat.. He sideswipe in the wall at around 160 km-h in corner 6.

I will jump over the detail, but if he had a headrestraint seat, he would propably still be alive.