UPDATE! Driver's side is in.



See page 2 of my cardomain site (link in signature) for all the details.

This turned out to be a lot more fabrication than I had hoped, but the end result is great.

After years of deciding on seats (I was the first to trial fit GTO seats years ago) I finally decided on Acura RSX Type-S seats and took the plunge. I wanted a factory seat for safety, reliability/durability, comfort, and look. I think the Acura RSX seats are a great compromise of comfort and support.

These are 2006 seats (bolsters were improved in 2005) and they have very little wear with less than 60,000 miles on them when removed. You can pick these up on ebay for less than $600 shipped.

Excuse the bad pictures, the seats, console, console cover, shift boot, dash, etc. all match darn near perfect but for some reason my camera always makes them look a variety of different colors.




The install of these seats required extensive fabrication. This included cutting the metal on the sides of the seats in half, welding in some patches after cutting raised areas out for clearance, and completely fabricatng new mounting brackets to tuck the Camaro rails up in the seat and gain enough clearance for a helmet. I used 6061 T6 3" x 3" x 0.25" aluminum angle for the brackets, which have enough strength to handle a 300lb. point load in bending (each). That was my basis for the design and should be very conservative. You can't be too careful when it comes to seats and safety.

Here are some shots of the brackets and the patch I had to weld in.






Seat rails installed.


Comparison of the factory Camaro seat, modified Acura seat, and the stock drivers side Acura seat.


After all the modifications, the Acura seat only added 12 pounds over the factory cloth seat and there is still plenty of head clearance for a helmet.

For reference, I am 6'0" 210 pounds (36 inch waist, XL tee shirt) and these seats are ohh so comfortable. Oh, and the head rest is actually usable!

Please ask me any questions you have and I will do my best to answer them. If there is enough interest I can take progress pics on the drivers side and do a write up. I wouln't be doing the drivers side until this fall/winter though.

Well, let me know what you think guys.

 

Can a moderator enlarge these pics or someone tell me how to do so. I just copied them from my cardomain site and they are very small.

 

Thats a pretty neat swap, I didn't get a chance to see, but how did the GTO seat swap go?

 

I just trial fit them, but they would have required some extensive fabrication as well. In the end they would still be too high and too heavy (plus they say GTO on them) so I passed. They are sooooo comfortable in my brothers GTO though. I love riding in that thing.

 

those look pretty sick...im in the market for new seats and that looks like a good choice

 

Look good- I like

 

You copied the thumbnail's URL instead of the enlarged photo. Here, I'll take care of it.

 

Good job man, they look really good.

 

They look pretty neat to me, I'm glad you did these with regard to safety. I was worried you were just "redneck rigging" these into the car, but it looks like you went to quite a lot of effort.

I think for those who don't like the stock seats, and who are wanting different padding, it's probably more cost effective to contact your local automotive upholstery shop and see how much it would cost to get the seat foam revised on the stock seats and new covers custom made based on the factory pattern. Those with '97-'02 seats could probably even have the center section reused to cut costs. At least that way you wouldn't have to overcome so many ergonomic issues with the width and height of other seats.

 

Yeah, I am a mechanical engineer and a co-worker and I designed the brackets, ran the stress calcs, and picked the material and thickness. Safety first.

The only problem I see with adding padding to the stock seats is that you will never get anything meaningful up around the shoulders due to the seat shape and you will never have a usable headrest/support. The stock seats are just too low backed.

There aren't any ergonomic "issues" with this seat that I can find as it sits nearly identical to the stock seat in the car. If anything it improved the ergonomics in terms of support and comfort. Seat belt still works, armrest is still the correct height, etc. again because it sits the same as the factory seat. It just has a higher backrest with more bolstering and a slightly wider bottom cushion with more bolstering, all good things.

 

Drivers side is in.

 

looks good. only question is.. don't the shoulder strap part of the seatbelt get annoying? looks like it would dig into the neck fairly good.. Is the part of the stock seats that holds the seatbelt to the side and putting it on your shoulder and not neck(sorry don't know what to call it..). Is that not transferable to these seats?

 

Surprisingly, it isn't bad on your neck at all. I took my brother out for a ride the other day and he had no complaints as well.

The stock seat belt guide would not transfer to these seats, but there are lots of other options, including leather button snap loops you can add to do the same function. Also, they make some clips that go on the seat belt and adjust where the shoulder strap comes across your chest for children that would work great. I had looked into all of these options thinking I would need to do one, but now I don't think I need to. Took the car to work this morning and it didn't bother me at all.

 

Looks good man

 

Not to bring up a dead thread, but there's a 50/50 chance I made that factory Camaro insert with the pattern on it. LOL.