I recently bought some racing seats off of ebay and want to mount them into my 91 z28 using the stock mounting brackets and sliders. I figure the easiest way to mount them is to take the stock brackets off the original seats (which I have done) and use strips of aluminum plate to make adapters. I was thinking about drilling holes to bolt the adapter plates across the original sliders connecting them together (creating a kind of square frame). Then I would drill a new set of holes to bolt the new seat to the adapter plate. The holes on the original seats and the new seats are about 13.5" across. However, the front and back holes on the original seats are 14" apart while they are only 11.5" apart on the new seat. Therefore I was thinking I would use two 16"x4" strips on each seat as the adapters which would give about 1.25" to spare on all sides of the holes for strength. I am sorry if my idea is confusing but it is hard to discribe. I would really appreciate any feed back from anyone who has had to do something like this. I also don't know what thickness of aluminum I should use for this (0.375").

The only other thing I could think of was to see how much material there is on the stock sliders and see about drilling a new hole in the actual slider, because I only have to correct for the front to back difference (about 1.25" toward the center from the original holes).

 

You don't have to go through all that trouble of building a "frame" .. I just did this back march the 9th. The parts I bought ran right at $15, and all I had to do was cut a few things. No need to even drill a single hole

I wrote this up and posted it on here right after I done it.. But here's all the info and pics again...


Cheap ebay race seats in car.... Mounts, install info, and pics here...

Ok guys.. I know there's a few of yall that wanted to know how to mount them, how they fit, etc. I got mine all done and installed. I wrote up everything I had to do and buy to install them for others wanting to do this.. Too many pics to post on here. The mods might get made at me, so they are all one my webshots page. The links to each pic is below

The fit........The fit in the car IMO is better than stock seats as far as side to side fit. There's more room in between seat and seat belt at door still, more room between seat and consol glove box door. The only tight spot is at the front of the seat, because of the thigh support, it flares out a good bit, and comes very close to the consol around the E brake handle and shift patt. numbers next to shifter.

They do sit up a bit higher than stock seats. It feels kinda funny at 1st. It makes you feel like your sitting in a truck or van and looking down, but you do get use to it.

This may not apply to all people, but with me i'm glad I have tilt wheel. I'm a big guy. 275 lbs, 38" waist, bigger muscels in my thighs and legs.

Steering wheel at norm non tilt wheel height hits the top of my thighs. I have to go up one click above norm non. tilt height (1 click below all the way up)
Oh yeah.. With the little brackets to mount the stock sliders on, stock sliders, all bolts, and seats they weigh 31 lbs each. That's 5 lbs each less than stock non powered third gen seats with sliders

The pics... Here's the links.....
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92230837SkxxXM
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92231813YOIxsb
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92232390gmHqLw
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92232878pdOLMn
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92233344iXljSF
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92243540WBuluA
http://community.webshots.com/photo/...92244007OWjlXv

The install and mount making....

Here's what you need to install them, and why
The sliders and slider mounting holes in seats are about 15" apart
The studs in the floor of the third gen camaro/firebirds are 13-3/8" apart, so you need something to bolt to the seats, that moves the slider mounting holes inboard.

What I found to work best for me is whats called a mending brace. It's a pc. of flat bar steel, with holes pre drilled in it. They come in diff sizes. The ones I used are 12" long x 1-1/8" wide x about 1/8" thick, and has 6 pre drilled 5/16" holes.

You'll need 3 of these. I bought mine at Ace hardware for $2.99 each.

Cut each one into 3 4" pc. You want to make your cuts in between 2 holes. So each pc. has a hole at each end. The 3 braces will make 9 pc., but you only need/use 8 of them.

Ok lets move onto the seats. The seats comes with flat sliders on them. At each coner theres an allen head bolt. In between the seat bottom and slider there's a spacer about 1/4" thick or so. The threads in the seats are metric.

You could use the bolts, but they are too long, and you would have to put the spacer under the bolt head when you put your custom brackets on. I didn't like that, so Back to ace hardware again. I bought 8 metric bolts. Size is M8 x 1.25" pitch, with a thread lenght of 9/16". These was .27 cents each. I used the lock washers that was on the bolts holding the sliders to the seats

Now take your stock seat tracks off.

To bolt the brackets you cut to the sport/race seat, use the new metric bolts you just bought.

With the 4" long brackets sungged on the seats, you can rotat them. Being one end is bolted up and other aint, you can turn them in a circle. You'll need to rotat the tops of the top brackets so they point toward the front center of seat.

The rear ones, need to angle toward the rear center of the seat.

Now your reay to bolt the stock camaro sliders on. To do this while your at Ace (or other hardware store) pick up 8 5/16" x 3/4" long bolts at .15 cents each, 8 5/16" taps at .08 cents each, and 8 5/16" lockwashers at .07 cents each

Aline the holes in the stock sliders with the holes in the brackets you cut. You may have to move them around to get em' lined up. Put those 5/16" bolts, taps, and lockwashers through holes in the stock camaro sliders and the holes in the little 4" brackets you cut.

Ok now the stock sliders are bolted on. snug up all the bolts. I wasted 2 hours trying to measure center to center of mounting holes to get sliders right. It's too big of a pain, move rear out, front moves in, etc,

so then I figured, just take the seat with sliders on it out to my car. Sit it in the car, and put the holes in stock sliders over studs in floor. You will have to wiggle the mounts around some, but it will fit right up. Now fully tighten all the bolts you can get too up. If you couldn't reach any of the bolts to tighten when in car, get the ones you can tight, now take seat back out and tighten the one you couldnt get too.

If you have a cutting tool such as a angle grinder with cut off wheel, cutting torch, body saw, etc this is very easy to do. Not even any drilling.

All in all takes about 2 hours, to cut, put on seats, take old stock tracks off, and bolt everything in your car.

The parts to make the stock tracks fit these seats, and bolt into your car will run you $15

 

Thanks alot Night rider327. I was planning on making some adapters like that but don't think I can. I purchased some DAD racing seats off of ebay and the mounting holes on thoses seats are 13-3/8" apart just like the factory seats. However, the holes are closer together at 11.5" front to back compared to the factory 14". Therefore, the problem I am running into is having to place the bolt for the new seats right where the slider has to be to bolt into the car. I was going to try and use my factory power seat bracket, but I think that would be close to impossible considering one of the risers is located right where the bolt has to go. I ordered a manual bracket for the drivers side from Hawks to fix this problem.

The way I think I am going to mount the seats is by drilling two new holes 1.25" closer to the center of the original slider (based on the original seat holes). Then I would just have to bolt the seats to the sliders just like the factory seats and the brackets will still line up with the floor bolts. I know I will lose about 2" of travel because of the bolt heads acting like bump stops on the sliders but this seems to be the easiest and best solution.