Recently purchased a set of new-in-box Recaro SRD's from a friend off a message board at a very good price. I've been seat shopping for quite a while and was set on Recaro Sports in 2-tone (suede bolsters with black/grey seating surfaces) but the prices on the SRD's was too good to be true... I got the SRD's plus the brackets & sliders for 35% of the cost of a pair of the Sports, and I was already going to get a very good price on the Sports.

After some modifications to the Wedge seat brackets (moving a couple tabs and some additional gusseting, I wasn't happy with the flex in them) they're now installed along with a new set of Morris Classic 3 point retractables.

This is without a doubt one of the best mods to the car. The seats are very supportive (almost restrictive actually) and extremely comfortable. No more sliding around on the stock buckets in hard turns, in fact, now that I'm held in firmly I have a much, much better feel for the car during corners and I'm shocked just how communicative the car feels now that I'm relaxed and not hanging on for dear life as I was in the stock buckets. The Morris seatbelts are nice pieces too, unlike the factory fixed 3-points I can actually lean forward now to change the A/C or use the stereo!

They look nice too. :)

http://home.comcast.net/~swedish_chef/stuff/ForumStuff/seat1small.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~swedish_chef/stuff/ForumStuff/seat2small.jpg

They're also ready for 4 (or 5) point belts should I put a cage in the car.

Nice!

You planning to leave that big white "recaro" on the headrests? Get custom with a black sharpie and do it right. ;)

Just curious if you plan to leave it or use something blank or custom in its place.

They look good, I didnt realize the side support was that high or deep (depending on how you look at it, I guess) on those seats. Very nice.

This is without a doubt one of the best mods to the car.


I said exactly the same thing after installing Sparcos. You can now focus on driving the car instead of the car driving you.

They look right at home.

How do you like the new belts? Have you had the inertia reels kick in yet?

Those look nice. How tall are you and how is the headroom?

I don't think my fat a$$ would fit in them
Cheers
Bear

"Recaro " is Oracer spelt backwards. Seems OK to me. Looks very nice and your comments point out the fact that the tactile aspect of the seats (and also the controls) should not be under-appreciated. Nice job. I like the belts, too. How much for the belts?

You planning to leave that big white "recaro" on the headrests?

Had I ordered these seats I would have got the black stitched Recaro logo, but I'm not being picky for what I paid for these. I might try dying the stitching black but I don't really mind the white as I'm not facing backwards when driving. LOL. Black would be preferred though. The guy I bought them from also included a roll of the same material to recover the backseat to match, still deciding on that. My backseat is still original 1969 GM and in mint condition, so I'll probably pick up another seat back and bottom and have that re-upholstered.

I like the belts, too. How much for the belts?

Belts were around $250 from Summit. Could have got them quite a bit cheaper had I purchased them during their promotional period just after release on the message boards last year.

I said exactly the same thing after installing Sparcos. You can now focus on driving the car instead of the car driving you.

They look right at home.

How do you like the new belts? Have you had the inertia reels kick in yet?

Yep, had the inertia reels kick in quite a few times today. Really like them. The shoulder swivel extension is perfect, the belts do not ride up on my neck at all like the stockers did.

One drawback (if you can call it that) to the seats is that I'm held in place so well I've found myself ripping through turns way harder than I should be on the street. The slippery stock seats limited my cornering "fun" and now that I'm held in place I've been tearing around my previous favorite windy country roads faster than before, often much faster. I'll be watching the front tires, I may need to dial in more negative camber and take away some toe-in because of my new driving style. I knew the seats would make a big difference in the overall "feel" of the car but I had no idea the difference would be this dramatic. It literally feels like an entirely different car. Some of the feelings I used to attribute to suspension issues were stock seat issues-- I used to think my shocks were way underdamped but now I realize it was the bottom springs on the stock seats bouncing me up and down. I also managed to get these seats about 2" lower than the stock seats which made a big perceived difference too.

Those look nice. How tall are you and how is the headroom?

I'm 5'10" 150 lbs. I have about 3-4" or so to the headliner I'd say and I tend to sit very upright-- no "gangsta lean" in my car. I tried sitting in the car with my helmet on today and it doesn't rub the headliner. I have the seat sliders mounted on the lowest hole, there are 3 height options on them. I could probably get the seats another 1" lower if I modded the Wedge adapters and lowered the mounting tabs on them.

Nice work,Troy. I definitely need some motivation to get off my butt and get my Arizen seats installed. You've convinced me about the Morris Classic belts as I've been looking hard at those,too.

looks great Gokou - I would cover the back seat too. At least lay the material on there to see what it looks like. Send pic if you do please.

Very nice, I think getting good lateral supports in a seat is such a huge benifit to any car. I absolutely HATE sliding around in a seat in corners.

I assume these seats are also quite a bit lighter than your old seats. How much have you considered a roll cage? If you like doing a lot of corner carving, it can be a nice safety feature, but also stiffens up the chassis. I wouldnt go with a pre-built cage, I'd get one custom built to be the tightest fit possible.

A cage is definately in the works. I have a spare frame sitting out back that I need to box and finish design & fabrication of a 3-link out back (still need the 9" rear end to go with it) plus some front control arm mount reinforcements (especially the rear lower mounts.) When I do bodywork and swap the frame the car will be getting a cage, probably with nose bars too because I don't like the amount of flex in the frame forward of the cowl.

I'm working on a bolt-together kind of cage arrangement-- what I want to do is weld the cage to the body but have the cage tied into every body mount location. I would weld threaded plugs into the ends of each cage tube in the body mount location thus serving as the attachment points for the frame. The body bolts would then go directly into the cage. This would allow for easy body seperation later and if used in conjunction with solid aluminum body bushings should make for a very stiff assembly. I'm also considering incorporating shear pins into the cage/frame interfaces.

Lots of stuff in the works, just need to find the time/money/fab equipment to do it.

I like the direction your goin with your car. I too like a rather stiff car, far better than a sluggish wobble bucket in any corner. Things like the aluminum bushings and polyurethane bushings often get complaints by ppl of being too stiff. I always welcome pieces that stiffing up the chassis, and gets the car more reactive.