Installed a Recaro Sport seat last night

[Sh944]

Man, oh man, what an improvement! I cannot believe how much of a difference it makes over the stock seats.

Number one, before starting on this, DISCONNECT THE NEGATIVE LEAD ON YOUR BATTERY! Airbag systems are not designed to go off when they are just being disconnected, but electricity can be a funny thing and you don't want to have it go off unexpectedly. Better safe than sorry and if pulling the neg lead on your battery takes you more than 15 seconds, you probably aren't qualified to do this install yourself anyway.

Installation was a bit more of a convoluted mess than I was expecting, since I decided to use the Planted seat brackets that were supposed to be a direct fit. The seat bracket bolt holes matched up to the floorplan, but aside from that, I was disappointed overall in the product for at least my application. It was obviously a "multi-fit design" for the plate itself, and then had mounting ears welded on to fit the specific application. It was also heavy, which negates the weight saving of going with a lighter seat, although by the time I was done with my sawzall cutting the bracket down to fit my specific requirements, it was about 1/3rd lighter than what I started with.

The main issue was that the Recaro Sport seat bottom extends below the seat rail mounting. While I *could* have put a 1.25" spacer rail in between the slider and the Planted bracket, which would have allowed the bracket to be used "as-is", I was also wanting to lower the overall seat height. As a result, mounting directly to the Planted bracket wouldn't allow it to slide forward or backwards for position adjustment, henceforth I broke out the sawzall and went to work.

Once I had cutaway the back rail and test fit the seat, I also drilled a hole on each side of the Planted bracket to allows the seat rail sliders to be centered more to my liking than the original holes allowed. At that point, it became a "bolt together" project. I put some spacers on the backside between the Planted seat bracket and the sliders to adjust the angle of the base upward slightly, but it worked out to my satisfaction.

Next issue was properly mounting the seat belt receiver. I removed the receiver and sensor wiring from the factory seat and attached it to the seat belt receiver bracket on the Planted seat bracket, but the holes were different diameters so I had to come up with a way to shim each of the holes. This is very important, as the bolt running through those holes holding it together is what holds YOU in place if you get into an accident. You can't have a lot of slop in there, or it will act as a shearing machine and will effectively cut the bolt holding your seatbelt in place if you get hit hard enough. What I did was find two nuts that were just larger than the respective holes and put my bench grinder to work, rounding the edges so that they fit through the holes. I also had to make one of them narrower by grinding down the face of it. I then found some appropriate sized washers and assembled it so that I had a multi collared bolt that held the seat belt receiver in place but allowed the unit to rotate properly.

After that, I popped a 3.3 ohm resister into the airbag harness, bolted the seat in, reconnected the neg battery lead, and took it for a drive. I am absolutely in love with the Recaro seats and the lowered position fixed a couple of issues I had with the factory seats. First, it changed the angle of my right leg when I am working the accelerator and brake to a more normal position with less bite into the back of my thigh from the seat cushion. Its a little thing but I am positive that alone will make some of the cross country drives I take in my FR-S much more comfortable. Secondly, the sight line is much improved as I actually look out the windshield instead of down the hood. Lastly, it puts the door armrest and the center console at a perfect level for me.

Next will be to tackle the passenger side seat. I will be able to cut/prep the other bracket ahead of time , which should make the installation go a lot faster, and I think I will pull out my lathe and cut down a shim for the seatbelt receiver, but my main concern is the passenger seat pressure sensor pad. Does anyone have the part number for that handy, or perhaps one they want to sell? I don't want to cannibalize my factory seat as I will be turning my current car in for a 2014 in March/April, and I want to be able to just throw the originals back in without having to redo everything.

Regards, ...Scott

[Diode Dynamics]

Sounds complicated!

Did you take any pictures or videos?

Nick C.

[Sh944]

Its not *that* bad, but I didn't want to compromise on how I wanted it to fit, and I also wanted to be safe and properly engineered.

By the way, I don't want to give the impression that I am bad mouthing Planted. I am sure its a good bracket for lots of folks, it just wasn't right for me.

[Sh944]

I didn't take pictures while I was installing it, and what I did to that Planted bracket wasn't pretty so I wouldn't want to show that to anyone. lol I will be pulling it out at some point in time and making it prettier (grinding the cuts smooth and shaping it so it looks like a finished product) and I will document the install and post pictures at that point.

The main thing I want to stress is that is a lot more to replacing the seats in a car than just "unbolt the old one and bolt the new one in". Seats are one of the most important safety devices in a car as they have to absorb impact while staying stationary and protect the occupant. Not having the proper bolts securing it to the floorplan or having the seatbelts (or seatbelt receiver) improperly mounted can kill people.

EDIT: I went ahead and snapped a picture of the remains of the bracket I installed and the one for the passenger side that I haven't done surgery on yet. As you can see, it was a pretty healthy chunk of metal but it is still plenty rigid once its bolted down.

[spitfire481]

I mounted my recaros directly to the planted brackets with no sliders. I have pole positions with recaro side mount brackets. I just had to drill 4 holes in each plated bracket to nut and bolt the recaro side brackets to it. I also made seat belt extender brackets since it was a pain to fasten the factory seatbelts originally since they were so low comapred to the side height of the pole position.

I took the weight sensor from my factory seat and installed it in the recaro. Was a bit of a pain to remove

[the.big.kahoona]

Brb restarting my phone cant see pics

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[briang0901]

[Sh944]

The rigid back Pole Position seat should fit perfectly on that bracket since the seat bottoms are fairly flat, iirc. The Sport seats dip down a good bit (at least an inch) from the seat slider rail mounts, and thats what was hitting the Planted bracket.

[Sh944]

OK, due to some requests, I snapped some more pictures...

First picture show the depth that the seat bottom goes below where the slider rail mounts.

Second picture does an admittedly poor job showing where the unmodified Planted bracket interferes with the bottom of the seat.

Third picture... beer time!

[utekineir]

wow, thats a lot of droop on the seat pan. or maybe its exaggerated without sliders.

I was very close to picking up recaro sports or a sportster. But recently came across a deal on an rx8 recaro and made that work mounted directly to iron straps on the floor. My seat pan droop is a bit less significant, but still is resting directly on the floor.


The addition in headroom has made the car much more ape friendly. Gf hates it though.

[Sh944]

Its definitely exaggerated without the sliders, but those are approx 1" thick and that still leaves a little more than an 1" to deal with. I was surprised as well, but its more than worth it when you actually sit in them.

[SuperKazRacing]

I had a Pair of All Carbon SPG Racer's in my Saleen Speedster !

Talk about a Tight fit !

Thank God my Girl and I are Not Big or we would of been Stuck in them for ever !

They weight a little over 2 Kilos each !

Now do you have a rear Harness bar or what are you using for Belts?

[swift996]

Looks nice, wish it came this way!

[fooyc]

hi,
just wonder if those bracket also can be used in a subaru GDB?