I decided to take Colin Chapman's words to heart and remove a few hundred pounds from my Ti this winter in an attempt to get her down to below 2500 pounds.
I do not want to lose functionality as this is a street driven driver, but anywhere I can lose weight and not daily confort is a good one. The air conditioning is going, it does not work anyway.
What I am looking for though.. are comfortible light weight seats. I would like to keep the recline mechanism so I can get stuff out of the back easier, but is not a necessity. Anybody got any recommendations for a good comfy and lightweight seat I can use in daily driven car?
wow.. I am surprised nobody had an answer for me
I expect more of us are familiar with fixed-back racing seats. Could you take a page from the classic Mini seat setup and make a simple bracket to let the seat flip forward?
Comfy is a bit of a matter of opinion. Seats are kind of like shoes - different people find different ones comfortable. I have Corbeau FX1 Pro seats with Backsaver foam from Pegasus in the bottom, and I can happily sit in that car for over 13 hours a day. Meanwhile, a coworker had a set of Sparco Speed seats that were super-comfy for him but put my legs to sleep in about 15 minutes. The moral of the story is that you have to try them on if possible.
What about finding a factory seat from another car? Something a bit more biased towards weight?
mrhappy
New Reader
9/14/09 5:06 p.m.
e30 sport seats weigh a lot less than the e36 power seats. You might want to try a set.
Are you ditching the rear seats as well, or are you keeping those?
Corbeau makes a bunch of reclining seats, but I can't find any info on how much they weigh. They weigh more than fixed seats, but IDK if they'll weigh less than your stock seats.
I am ditching the rear seats and going for a lightweight flat foor. Also ditching the power locks and wiring (never use those anyway) and the heavy sunroof mechanism for a lightweight C/F cover that I intend to modify with the guts from a generic "popup" sunroof. I will keep the rain tray, but I will only be able to pop up the sunroof or remove it totally.
Light weight rims, lighter flywheel, and ditching the aircon and a few other unnecessary doodads I never use should see my car losing 200 pounds.
I will look into the E30 seats.. quite a few E30s in the yards now with the seats still in them. Easy enough to remove and weigh
Perhaps go with a fixed back light racing seat for the driver and another lighter OEM reclining seat for the passenger, kind of like the suggested E30 seat. This gives you access to the back and less discomfort to your passenger as someone stated above, racing seats are not very universal for fit/comfort.
Plus in my experience I do not like to dislodge my driving position and always have back seat passengers enter on the passenger side and do the same when putting bags/random storage things back there. Only if traffic doesn't allow do I use my side to access the rear seats.
Get a fixed-back racing seat, either aluminum or composite, they can be pretty comfortable.
I was looking at Porsche 944 seats and they can be had relativly cheaply. Anybody got an idea how light they are?
Hal
HalfDork
9/15/09 3:39 p.m.
mad_machine wrote:
I was looking at Porsche 944 seats and they can be had relativly cheaply. Anybody got an idea how light they are?
The powered driver seats are not light. Neighbor told me his weighed 60+ pounds when he took it out to put in a racing seat. Has not removed the passenger seat yet but it should be a bit lighter since it is not powered. This was from a 944S2.
