To List,
I did the Miata seat install in my roadster. I have a 1970 2000 and I
installed 1996 Miata seats with headrest speakers, paid $100 +$50 shipping.
Actually, the shipping is a not an accurate price reflection as I got lucky
because the seats were in Fresno, I am in Wenatchee, WA (central Washington
State) and one of my coworkers had her brother in law driving up from Fresno
to here for vacation so I really lucked out!!! I gave him $50 to throw them
in his SUV on the way up here. Bought seats on Wednesday, had them here on
Friday. Got them off a Miata forum classified advertisement. Just did a
google search last week for "Miata seat". I had the seat belt attachment
"thing" removed off of the Miata seats. So, how did the install go?
Very easy. One of the easiest mods you can do to your car. Pulled out old
seats. Pulled back carpeting. I had just recently (well, 2 years ago, but
that was only about 500 miles ago) tore out my interior and installed new
carpet. Under the carpet I had installed a foil "heat shield" carpet kind
of stuff. I think I got it at a local parts house and you buy it in a roll.
It has foil on one side and felt matting on the other. I think it's
supposed to go under your hood but I can't recall anymore. I use it to keep
heat and noise from road down. Anyway, the point is that I have that under
the carpet so my flooring is fairly thick.
Per the 311s website (thanks whomever wrote that, HUGE help!!!!), you will
need to drill 1/4" pilot holes and then 1/2" holes in your floorboard. Now,
I don't know if my car is unique or if every roadster is like this, but I
had 2 sets of holes in my car for my original seats. I was able to use one
of the holes to install my seats. You do need to drill it out to 1/2", but
it sure helped having a pre-drilled mounting hole (meaning previous roadster
mounting hole) to install the seats. BTW, I did grind off that pointed
locating post that is on Miata seats and banged the slides flat. Again,
very easy to do.
So, I drilled out one hole to 1/2" that had previously been used for my
roadster seats. I was able to do this for both driver and passenger side.
I believe it was the front left hole on both sides. With that done, I could
place the seats and bolt that one bolt in (using 1/2" x 1 1/2" bolt). I was
able to slide the driver's seat all the way back, exposing the front right
mounting point. Drilled that out and bolted it in. Moved seat all the way
forward and marked back holes. Removed seat and drilled those holes. Did
same on passenger side, however something must've been screwed up on the
slides on that seat because it wouldn't slide all the way forward or back
even out of the car. No big deal as that seat won't be moved much anyway.
Just marked where the holes would go with a marker and drilled them out.
Now the hard part. Please don't think anything above is hard. It is as
simple as drilling a hole. I'm not a mechanic and if I could do the above
in about 1 hour, anyone can do it. Again, for me I was able to use one of
my existing mounting holes after drilling it out a bit. If you are unable
to do that, it might be a bit harder, but not much. The difficult part for
me was getting the seats mounted over the padding and carpet. As I said
above, my flooring is thick. I cut a hole in my padding and my carpet where
each mounting hole is. I did not cut the carpeting out where the tracks
run. I used one washer on each bolt and then placed that through the hole.
Used another washer under car, a locking washer, then the nut. Tightened
that all down.
Results? Seats slide, but with a bit of effort. I suppose you could cut
out the carpet where the tracks are. That might help. Not sure if it is
dragging there or the bottom of the seat (with it's infamous "bulge") on the
carpet. I will let you know it does slide now, just not as easy as a new
car for example. It does slide easier than my roadster seat. Bear in mind
I have carpet and that thick padding under my seats.
Do I like it? Yes, it is nicer than what I had. My old seats were beaten
down and I basically sat on the floor of the car. These seats do raise you
up, although not a ton. I'm 5'10", 165#, with a 31" inseam. I can still
look out of the windshield. My arm now rests at a 90 degree angle on the
window sill as opposed to resting at an 80 degree or so angle previously.
So, for resting your arm out the car, it is more comfortable as my arm
doesn't have to "reach up" so to speak to rest on the window sill. These
seats seem narrower than the roadster seats. I would suggest, as one lister
did, to put a few more washers under the front of the seat as it will
increase the rake a bit instead of being flat now. Just a comfort thing.
My legs fit fine under the steering wheel and don't rub. I guess, if you
had properly rebuilt roadster seats compared to these, the Miata seats might
raise you an inch. If I recall correctly (maybe someone can measure their
car and post the numbers) the front of the roadster seat on my car was about
4" and these, if I recall (I'll measure again) the front of the Miata is
about 6". Back of seat (when you fold seat forward, measure from floor ot
top of seat bottom) is about 3 1/2" in roadster and about 4 1/2" Miata.
DON'T quote me on these numbers as it is off of memory. I'll measure my
Miata seats again and if someone would post roadster numbers we'd have those
to compare for all to see.
Why did I do this (install Miata seats)? My seats were in pretty bad shape
and I was tired of putting a towel/cheesy seat cover on my vinyl roadster
seats to prevent being burned in the sun. The price of these seats is
cheaper than just the new vinyl for the roadster seats. I will be using the
headrest speakers but that was not a big deal to me as I had already
installed speakers in my roadster headrests (pretty easy to do, just let me
know if you want to know how I did it). Maybe I was just using to the
"slouching" style of the roadster seats or maybe I was just used to sitting
on the floor of the roadster, but the roadster seats seemed more comfortable
to me. These are pretty firm and they are comfortable. Great support and
they do hold you in. So, I supposed on a pure comparison, the Miata seats
are superior.
Should you do it? Depends. They do raise you up a bit, but my guess is
that from my former seats to now, I'm maybe 1 1/2" high max. If you can't
spare that 1 1/2", then you might want to think about it. For a long trip,
Miata seats will leave you with less pain that the originals. Would I do it
again? Yes. I must say, though, that Datsun did a great job in designing
their seats. For those of you who are used to good seats (my other vehicles
are a 1987 Audi 5000 Turbo Quattro and a 1998 Durango, neither of these cars
have great seats), the Miata seats might be just the ticket!!
Sorry this email is so long. I just wanted to get out my experience to you.
Thanks to all who posted their experiences last week. And I can't recall
who did the 311s write-up, but huge thanks to him as well. If anyone has
any questions, please let me know. I'll tell you everything I can think of
to help!!
BTW, total time for both seat install was about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, including
lunch/beer breaks. If you do not have the felt padding or a stereo in your
car, it can easily be done in about 1 to 1 1/2 hours (I have a pretty
extensive stereo in the car, 8 speakers, all hidden, and the majority of the
wires run under the passenger seat so I had to move a few of them while I
was pulling up the carpet so that took a bit of time). Thanks again to this
List!!!!
Allen Blackmon
1970 2000 w/ early Solex's (still can't get them tuned correctly!)
Wenatchee, WA
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