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my summit racing 5pt seats (driver) foam started balling up under the cloth. Plus I have a wide back ( life of lifting weights) so the 5pt seats are uncomfortable in the shoulder/lat area. Instead of getting a new seat or going 4th gen I wanted something nicer and more comfortable as the car is a street car now. I converted back to 4th gen seat belts ( roll bar is now annoying) and found a pair of 2011 Camaro black cloth seats both power.
Got it to work fabbing mounts. The front diver is in and it fits okay. It sits high and I’m 6’1” and the roll bar stops me from being able to go back too far. It is comfortable and keeps me in a gpod position to drive my 650hp street car lol.
Wiring was easy and hopefully will have it done this week.
They look great! They look much better than 4th gen seats and I should know as an original owner of my twenty year old car. Those seats are expensive! I hope you got a smokin' deal on them.
They look great! They look much better than 4th gen seats and I should know as an original owner of my twenty year old car. Those seats are expensive! I hope you got a smokin' deal on them.
yea super comfortable! Loving them even tho I haven’t driven it yet. I’m doing a apple car play radio so I’ve been sitting in the car wiring it up.
I paid $250 for both. So $125 for the seats with 50k on them is a good deal! Especially when the driver is full power and pass side is power recline but manual slider.
I think 5th gen seats are actually Recaro seats. I priced a set online at one of the dealer sites and they were over $3K. I'm curious how similar or dissimilar the mounting points for these seats are compared to a 3rd or 4th gen. How much trouble did you go through to mount these seats?
I think 5th gen seats are actually Recaro seats. I priced a set online at one of the dealer sites and they were over $3K. I'm curious how similar or dissimilar the mounting points for these seats are compared to a 3rd or 4th gen. How much trouble did you go through to mount these seats?
yea... idk if they are recaro... maybe the 6th gen 1LE. They look like something that would be a recaro seat. They don’t look that sporty like a recaro.
The mounting points arent even close. The 5th gen floor is flat and the front uses a clip that the seat slides into,5)3 back has a large solid pin that aligns the seat and then the back uses a through bolt to lock it down. The 3/4th gens are bolted down at all 4 corners and the floor isn’t any where near flat lol. Also the mounting points are all over the place.
On the complexity... not anywhere near easy... your going to have to fab and weld to make them work. Wether it’s brackets on the car that the seats bolt to or making th seats the brackets that bolt to the car. the ONLY point that fit was the front inner hole on the seat track... drilled it out to accept the stock floor stud and then started making brackets. The fronts are easy just a 4” tab of metal inward, welded to the seat bracket and a hole drilled to mount to the stock floor bolt which is like 2” inward from the 5the gen track. The back ones are a cluster &$/ !*. They need to be spaced upward and inward different lengths to each side.
Pics didnt really show the points as I painted everything black. But this is what I got.
This is the driver seat and I didn’t have to cut the front hooks off the seat. The pass side I had to remove them so the seat would fit flush on the floor. Rear inner bracket. I want to say it was like 3/4”
Inward from the edge of the track. You can see the stock aligning pin right above it. The original mounting bolt for the 5the gen is right above that.
Thanks for this! I picked up a set for my project on the cheap and was planning on taking a similar approach. Nice to get a sense if it'll work before I hack up a perfectly good set of seats LOL
Mind dipping into how ya did the wiring?
did you only have to hot and ground them?
Yup, that’s it. To big spades on the ends of the plug, simple female spade with 1 ground and 1 power (stock plug isn’t marked so u just look and see the wire color is red or black. Hook up power and ground and you got power seats. Other connectors in the plug are for seat sensors and airbags etc.
these seats do look nice in your Bird! - wish you had more and better pics showing how it was done. The 5th gen did have a Recaro option in 14&15 my car didnt get them but the standard Alcantara are to my liking. I had mine in and out several times and they are easy in 5th gens! 2 bolts and a plug and each comes out there was quite a bunch of wires for the power movement and they also have air bags
these seats do look nice in your Bird! - wish you had more and better pics showing how it was done. The 5th gen did have a Recaro option in 14&15 my car didnt get them but the standard Alcantara are to my liking. I had mine in and out several times and they are easy in 5th gens! 2 bolts and a plug and each comes out there was quite a bunch of wires for the power movement and they also have air bags
Hard to get pics bc it blends in with the brackets.
I snagged some pics today of them in the car. So u can see how I did it. These are of the driver seat but the pass side is basically a mirror image.
Front inner is the original hole in the slider, just open it up and it poops into place. Front outer (door side) the OE bolt is inward a bit so some steel and a bit of weld and drill a hole
and your done. For the backs is where it gets tricky, mounting points are inwards of the frame so u have to weld to the slider which still has to slide so u can’t mess up the weld and go to hot.
Might be easier to remove the stock seat and make a jig, drill out the front inner on the 5th gens and mount it to the JIG. The others will be a lot easier if your doing it outside of the car I wouldn’t did that but I don’t have stock seats.
I also attached a he’s a pic of the connector, just 2 hook ups and the power seats work. Front outer (door side) Rear outer (door side) Same rear outer Front inner (console side) Rear inner Large spades power and ground for power seats.
Man, the power was what I was concerned about.. just those 2? power and ground.. white ground and brown power?
Negative. See on the black plug I have + and - written in silver permanent marker. White is positive for me and brown is ground. I didn’t have any black or red wire at the time. The OEM wire in the large black connector is red for power and black for ground.
Otherwise, yes that is all you need for the power seats to be working. U won’t have seat belt alarms or air bag sensitivity. Just power seats. Leather seats will more than likely have heated and possibly cooled which means more hookups if you want it to work. Mine are cloth and are basic amenities so power and seat belt plus air bag.
Negative. See on the black plug I have + and - written in silver permanent marker. White is positive for me and brown is ground. I didn’t have any black or red wire at the time. The OEM wire in the large black connector is red for power and black for ground.
Otherwise, yes that is all you need for the power seats to be working. U won’t have seat belt alarms or air bag sensitivity. Just power seats. Leather seats will more than likely have heated and possibly cooled which means more hookups if you want it to work. Mine are cloth and are basic amenities so power and seat belt plus air bag.
What is the distance from the seat surface to the roof? Looking at seat options debating putting either these or late model mustang (I know) seats but I'm tall and have no room for being higher than 4th gen seats.
What is the distance from the seat surface to the roof? Looking at seat options debating putting either these or late model mustang (I know) seats but I'm tall and have no room for being higher than 4th gen seats.
they are definitely higher than 4th gens. Which are basically the same as 3rd gens. The seat bottom is thicker and thus you sit higher in the car. I have 4th gens and the bottom bucket is lower than the 5th gens. I can not comment on how much but it is noticeable.
- wish you had more and better pics showing how it was done. The 5th gen did have a Recaro option in 14&15 my car didnt get them but the standard Alcantara are to my liking. I had mine in and out several times and they are easy in 5th gens! 2 bolts and a plug and each comes out there was quite a bunch of wires for the power movement and they also have air bags 
