Alternative Seats - 240Z in a Spider?

[NorthernOtter]

Moving on to the interior restoration of my Spider, and I've been thinking about other options than restoring the old, torn black vinyl seats.

I know we need a smaller seat, so not just any bucket will do. I've been looking at the buckets from a 1969 Datsun 240Z. Does anyone have any experience swapping these in?

Any other options?

[davidbruce]

There is a post on the forum regarding seat swaps. I got a set of early Miata seats (don't know the year) from a friend. I removed the sliders from them, drilled out the mounting brackets that were riveted on. And welded flatbar to them for a new, slightly wider bolt pattern. It was a bit of work but I didn't want to alter the stock sliders in case I wanted to revert back to them. One thing I found out the hard way was they were not symmetrical. I measured one and modified it. Modified the other the same way and the holes didn't line up. The passenger seat mounts for the sliders were about an inch narrower. If I had the seats when I repaired the floors I may have just removed the mounts from the floor and moved them inboard if I wasn't worried about ever going back to stock.

[chrisg]

Were the Miata seats the correct height mounted this way?

I have Miata seats in my 128 & they are nice, inexpensive seats, but a 128 is more forgiving with seat height than a 124.

[ORFORD2004]

I put Honda S2000 in mine. But I remove the floor seats bracket and cut the bump on passenger side.

[davidbruce]

There were stamped steel mounts on the stock sliders that raised the seats an inch or so . I removed these and welded flatbar to the stock sliders which lowered them. I'm 5 -10 but have short legs so sit taller. I also like some lean to my seat back. I haven't driven with them yet. But test sittings they are about right for me. I'm away for a few weeks but can post pics when I get home if you want. This link shows a different way to do it.

http://www.fiatspider.com/f15/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4627

In another post I read someone installed and then removed them because they sat to tall for him.