[Fro-dizzle]

Good work Jim, looking forward to seeing the seats progress.

When you go back in to do the cone you can do similar with the drain pipe and enlarge the lower air feed that is currently under the filter too 👍🏽

Same grill I have good to see spots aren’t too bad to fit as I fancy a set at some point in the future.

 

[Dave^]

I may takethe bottom grille off and black out the red body colour though

I was going to suggest this, looks a bit odd seeing red behind the grille.

 

[big jim]

I’ve had a thought about my airbox cock up, ordered something else of Amazon which may or may not sort it! watch this space

in other news I’ve collected the seats I bought off eBay this evening so I’m now fully prepared to do the sparco seats, got all the parts and tools, sods law the weather will be against me the rest of the weekend now

 

[big jim]

A good afternoons work today, 1st seat in place

a basic pictorial how to........

First up was removing the runners off the donor seat, 8 T25 bolts per seat

also remove the seatbelt pretensioner for reuse, it’s a T50 to get the tensioner off the bracket below

This needed to be ground off, my grinder is a 5 inch disc type which keep getting caught on the edge of the bracket, a 7 inch type would do the job easier but it wasn’t too bad, I had to hit the ground off rivet with a centre pop to release it from the seat

This is the seat base plate from ‘powerful uk’ on eBay (who also supplied the black front grille) £56 a pair which when you consider I can reuse original parts compared to buying separate sparco sliders and brackets is pretty good value for money and time saving not having to fabricate or adapt bits

the runners, without the tilt mechanism/boden cable reel attached, a single T15 bolt holds that in place and you have to remove the ‘ribbon’ bracket from the front of the slider too, the runners will then bolt to the plate, they are universal with grooves to the front for the sliding bar, I believe earlier ones were ‘handed’ with only one groove

in place (awaiting bolts)

in with the bolts, remembering the pretensioner bracket, now with this put in place as removed the bolt holes dont line up properly, I ended up grinding the inner upright off completely meaning it fitted nicely on top of the plate

next up, attach the seat, the holes in the plate line up perfectly with the sparco holes

M8 x 1.25 20MM long hex bolts

the site will only let me upload 10 pics per post so you will have to wait in suspense while I upload the final few pics!

 

[big jim]

And the seat itself

sparco R100 sky, faux leather

Bolted to the base

and seatbelt pretensioner and clasp refitted

over to the car, first up, disconnect the battery then remove the existing seat which is held in with 4 T25 bolts and unplug the airbag and pretensioner connections

fit the fused 3.9ohm resistor for the airbag light

and in with the seats, Tighten the bolts, reattach the airbag connections, battery reconnected and voila, fire up the car and hope the airbag light stays off (which it did)

just the right size seat, doesn’t catch any of the interior trim anywhere, about 10mm between the head restraint bolster and trim is the closest

first impressions, it’s a bit of a shock to jump into a bucket seat after sitting in a comfy padded standard seat, it’s going to take some getting used to!

height wise it’s just about where I like it, it’s low down but compare it to the passenger seat in the above pics and it’s not too far off that base height, if I wanted to raise it in the future I could add some spacers between the seat and base but it seems ok, the real test is going to be when I have to use it for work which is a 50 mile each way trip on the motorway with a bit of A and B road driving at each end

really pleased with the seat, look superb, seem comfy enough, will be better when I get the other one in, that may not be until next weekend now due to work

 

[Maccmike]

Looks smart Jim

 

[Fro-dizzle]

Top work Jim, very nice indeed, nice write up too.

You’ll love them, particularly when you hit some roundabouts/corners and don’t have to hold on to the steering wheel for dear life 😂

 

[big jim]

To busy today and too wet this evening to get the other seat done but had a delivery off amazon

as you know I made a cock up with my airbox lid by putting an extra cold air feed in but didn’t think to add a cone filter so the hole is the clean air side of the panel filter

The original plan was to simply fit a K&N cone filter however I’m going to try something different (and cheaper), ramair do a nice range of foam motorbike filters with various sized necks so I’ve ordered one of those with a 70mm neck and approx 90 mm foam element

the plan is to shorten the pipe I glued into the airbox top and fit the filter to the shortened pipe, the foam element will push through the hole i drilled in the bulkhead poking out into the void below the scuttle vent/wipers with the back rubber flange of the filter sitting flush on the bulkhead plastic from the engine bay side with the whole lot clamped to the airbox lid

if it’s not raining tomorrow when I get in from work I’ll give it a try

 

[Deavilly76]

Look nice them Jim Re the seatbelts, what I've been doing now that I've got the factory JCW sparcos in is make use of the plastic slider on the seatbelt itself. Slide it up to just under shoulder height so it supports the buckle then as you get out of the car just make sure the belt is sat in the seat for when you jump in next.

 

[big jim]

Couple of other things, looking back at my how to guide with the seats I can see how I can save myself a bit of time and effort when it comes to removing the pretensioner bracket, knowing now the inner upright needs grinding off it’s going to be easier for me to clamp the bracket still while still on the seat (to stop it rotating) and simply grind the upright off in situ rather than grinding the rivet head off then trying to do grind it off away from the seat, basically the rivet and upright will be left on the seat!

then next up, I said I wasn’t going to mess with this car but I’ve bought an adapter off eBay to enable me to fit a double din head unit, as I did with the blue one, in that one I did a diy job with metal brackets whereas this one will have a 3D printed bracket that the heating controls will properly attach to, also comes with a template for the side bars to cut them properly for the lowered controls

the reason I’ve decided to do it is this car has normal heating control dials as opposed to the climate control buttons and dial that was in the blue car and the existing pioneer floating type H/U as much as I love it sits just slightly too low to see the top buttons (air con on button) and it’s bugging me (one of the bulbs is also out in the heating control unit so it will give me a chance to renew it)

this won’t be a straight away project as I will need a new head unit, I’m going to go for a Sony again as they are a shallow single din back with double din front so there is no issue with clearance around the heating unit behind the dash, I had to dremel the bottom left corner of the cage on the old car to fit but it wasn’t an issue when it came to fitting the headunit

this is the adapter

this is how it SHOULD look once fitted, it also comes with a USB socket plate that slots into that strange rectangular hole in the glovebox

planning on getting a Sony ax5550 head unit which is an upgrade from the 3500 I took out of the blue car, it has 2 USB inputs, one for CarPlay and the other for a good old traditional
iPod (which I miss having in the car)

more importantly before that though is a trip to carsorbikes for a supercharger service and pulley swap, the pulley belt is squeaking slightly now and is annoying me somewhat

 

[big jim]

Had a bit of an early finish today so got home before dark so cracked on with the 2nd seat, as mentioned above I removed the pretensioner bracket in situ with the angle grinder

and doing the same as the previous post, runners on the frame, frame on the seat and into the car

rhen as it tends to do most nights it went dark, so on went the head torch to do the airbox

the plan was the ramair filter in the bulkhead hole attached to the airbox, this is the filter in the hole

shortened the pipe on the airbox

and with the filter attached

and back on the car, as the filter is squishy I managed to get it through the hole with a bit of encouragement, I don’t think a solid k&n type filter would work as you need to get the back of the lid to hook onto the bottom section of the airbox, so having a bit of play helped me move the box lid about a bit to get it clipped in

quite pleased with that little fix!

 

[pipsyp]

Loving the seats mate! 😎

 

[Maccmike]

Have you got a filter in the box Jim?

 

[big jim]

yes, a pipercross panel filter

 

[Maccmike]

Oh yes I see it now. Does it sound better?

 

[big jim]

Not taken it out for a test yet but sounds nice when blipping the throttle

 

[Fro-dizzle]

Great work Jim, good thinking on the small filter.

Seats look fantastic!

 

[big jim]

Bit of a better daytime picture

 

[NigelStap]

Nice work. Looks good, like a factory fit.

Always a warm feeling when your hard work pays off.

 

[big jim]

Went out in it today, firm certainly is the word I’d use for the seat and suspension combo, if anything I think I’d like the seat to be tilted back ever so slightly maybe only about 10mm, might look at putting a solid metal Packer between the plate and seat to raise the front a bit

new leather gear gaiter and handbrake cover arrived today, I ordered black with white stitching but I’ve been sent black with red stitching and an S logo, actually looks quite good with the car being red but not sure whether to send it back