Lancer Evolution Recaro Install Using Wagon Rails!
Dave-O
Wagonist
I did it, and I'll show you how!
I originally had planned on using the Evolution's factory seat rails, and just bending the tabs into the appropriate position. It seemed like it would work, at least it had on both my '94 Integra and a friend's '94 Civic. That didn't work.
So while I was tossing things back together, I had laid the Recaro next to the stocker on the floor, and immediately noticed something: the bracket bolt holes were oddly similar between the Recaro seat bottom, and the tops of the wagon rails. If I had to guess, the holes were less than 1/8" further apart, front to rear. I didn't actually measure anything, but I'll wager to say the Recaro is about 1/8" wider as well.
Pictures are with my phone [Samsung Blackjack 1], apologies for the poor quality/blurriness.
So I started tearing things apart, and quickly found out why my car smelled so peachy ...
Looking at the bottom of the wagon seat/bracket combo, you'll notice three large gold bolts [fouth one is hidden in the top-right under the seat rail] holding the rails to the seat bottom:
It's difficult to tell in this picture, but there are two bolt holes directly to the left/right of the springs on the bottom, and two more just to the left/right of the yellow line on the top:
Here is one of the wagon rails mated to the Recaro seat bottom [seat back was removed for ease of fabrication]:
A close-up of the hole ... not very far off at all!
I had to grind one side flat on the bolts I bought in order to get them to fit inside the structure of the Recaro without turning as I torqued them down:
And the driver's side seat rail bolted onto the seat:
One particular bolt had to be ground down on two sides to fit a rather narrow section of the Recaro's structure:
And the passenger side bolted in!
Here's the seat bottom, bolted into the car:
* Yes, I left the Peachy-Peach scented tree on my floor. *
And the finished product:
* A side note: due to the location and thickness of the bolt-heads which I used to fasten the Recaro's seat structure to the wagon seat rails, I had to grind down a portion of the seat-back bracket to clear them. If you use allen-head screws, or thinner bolts, you will not encounter this problem. Also, I had to install the seat bottom before the seat back, otherwise I am unable to reach the rear seat bracket to floor bolts with a ratchet. I also left the plastic trim pieces off the sides of the Recaro, as I would be unable to get a phillips' head screwdriver in such a tight space to secure them - it looks fine without.
Total investment:
$2.09 for bolt/nut hardware
$150 for the Evolution Recaro from a 2005 LanEvo GSR
1 hour of my time
The bolsters are a night-and-day difference between stock and Recaro, and having harness holes is a definite plus, as I plan on a harness and harness bar in the near future for track events. The seat sits about two inches lower [complete guess], but is about the same distance from the wheel as the stock seat would be [still has the same fore/aft adjustment as stock].
I recommend this to anyone looking for a cost-effective upgrade that will hold you in on those rally/canyon-carving/trackday/autocross excursions.
I originally had planned on using the Evolution's factory seat rails, and just bending the tabs into the appropriate position. It seemed like it would work, at least it had on both my '94 Integra and a friend's '94 Civic. That didn't work.
So while I was tossing things back together, I had laid the Recaro next to the stocker on the floor, and immediately noticed something: the bracket bolt holes were oddly similar between the Recaro seat bottom, and the tops of the wagon rails. If I had to guess, the holes were less than 1/8" further apart, front to rear. I didn't actually measure anything, but I'll wager to say the Recaro is about 1/8" wider as well.
Pictures are with my phone [Samsung Blackjack 1], apologies for the poor quality/blurriness.
So I started tearing things apart, and quickly found out why my car smelled so peachy ...
Looking at the bottom of the wagon seat/bracket combo, you'll notice three large gold bolts [fouth one is hidden in the top-right under the seat rail] holding the rails to the seat bottom:
It's difficult to tell in this picture, but there are two bolt holes directly to the left/right of the springs on the bottom, and two more just to the left/right of the yellow line on the top:
Here is one of the wagon rails mated to the Recaro seat bottom [seat back was removed for ease of fabrication]:
A close-up of the hole ... not very far off at all!
I had to grind one side flat on the bolts I bought in order to get them to fit inside the structure of the Recaro without turning as I torqued them down:
And the driver's side seat rail bolted onto the seat:
One particular bolt had to be ground down on two sides to fit a rather narrow section of the Recaro's structure:
And the passenger side bolted in!
Here's the seat bottom, bolted into the car:
* Yes, I left the Peachy-Peach scented tree on my floor.
*And the finished product:
* A side note: due to the location and thickness of the bolt-heads which I used to fasten the Recaro's seat structure to the wagon seat rails, I had to grind down a portion of the seat-back bracket to clear them. If you use allen-head screws, or thinner bolts, you will not encounter this problem. Also, I had to install the seat bottom before the seat back, otherwise I am unable to reach the rear seat bracket to floor bolts with a ratchet. I also left the plastic trim pieces off the sides of the Recaro, as I would be unable to get a phillips' head screwdriver in such a tight space to secure them - it looks fine without.
Total investment:
$2.09 for bolt/nut hardware
$150 for the Evolution Recaro from a 2005 LanEvo GSR
1 hour of my time
The bolsters are a night-and-day difference between stock and Recaro, and having harness holes is a definite plus, as I plan on a harness and harness bar in the near future for track events. The seat sits about two inches lower [complete guess], but is about the same distance from the wheel as the stock seat would be [still has the same fore/aft adjustment as stock].
I recommend this to anyone looking for a cost-effective upgrade that will hold you in on those rally/canyon-carving/trackday/autocross excursions.
Comments
I wonder if regular Lancer seats fit as easily...
those seats are tits. i would totally get a set......
And yes, Mountain Dew FTMFW.
How low do the seats ride?? Or are they more or less the same as the OEM seats in ride height?
want to get rid of the nasty burning platiky seats
for these nice smoot ones
I wonder other recaro seats would fit this way.
Did you ever have the chance to check the 90-91 seat rails to see if they would fit as well?
F.
45m later: Yup...gonna need to take brackets into machine shop at work to get everything to fit. Need to cut off and grind smooth a couple of large brackets on the outside rail of the wagon to get them to mate flatly to the EVO seat frame. The auto belt side should be fine I think but the outside wagon rails mount to the side of the wagon seat not to the bottom, and there in lies the issue. Im going to have to cut off those flanges, drill some holes in the wagon rail and then I should be able to mount them. Also, the hex bolts on the EVO seat have some serious loctite on them.
My initial problem was that I wanted to incorporate the OEM rails because I needed to keep the auto belts. But after thinking about it last night I realized that I can use the EVO adjustable rails (the mounting points for the EVO just come off of each corner with a bolt) and make my own mounting points. This would be the ideal way to go for someone w/o auto belts, but I assumed that w/ auto belts you couldn't do it. Then it dawned on me that the auto belt mechanism is held on to the OEM rails with two nuts. So when I make the new mounting brackets to line up with the OEM wagon floor holes, I can just make an attachment to attach the auto belt mechanism to!
I'm not yet 100% sure this is going to work, but I'm pretty confident that it will.