I have a lead ona rear seat. Owned one on an 83 I once had. Would be perfect for fur babies transport. Would like to buy the rear seat but it of course will not fit with that brace in the way.

 

My understanding is the brace was installed for crash protection in N.Am RX7 SAs. Obv JDM and world market cars had rear seats, so these braces were deleted. It would suggest the chassis will be just fine with them out...
What you might be missing is any seat belt anchor points back there, speaking of kiddie transport.

Stu A
80GS
AZ

 

Fur babies == pets LOL!

 

81+ cars do not have them. i'm under the impression that they had something to do with the 5 mph bumpers, so they do something

 

Just yesterday I was wondering the same thing while relocating my subwoofer. Following to see if there is any further discussion.

 

personally, I would NEVER take them out of my 1980, and I have a subwoofer box with 8 inch subs (shallow version subs) and 6x9's right there.

I'd never take em out because if you've been through the car, you'll know that is a MAJOR structural support IMO. I'm running a v8, so I want as much of that as I can get! There's not a lot of meat as far as frame is concerned, but I doubt the have anything to do with bumper shocks, which are of minimal use. if someone gets rear ended in this car, given how low it is and not much frame it would not be good. I wouldn't move them. moving them and putting a child back there might be cool for a one off or something, but not something i'd trust as a DD.

 

No one said anything about children. Putting in the back seats will probably be just as supportive. Given there are bins there in the FBs, I suspect the braces don't do much.

And the bumpers are impressive on the SAs. I hit someone in the rear going about 30mph in the snow, no damage to my car but ripped the bumper cover from her grandam (late 80s model).

 

sorry, I saw babies and did not read the full thread. bumpers impressive? maybe because they're steel, but where they mount to is not impressive, nor are the springs dampners. That sub frame is not very thick, and the seats being as strong as the supports?????? are you serious right now?

respectfully disagree on both counts even though you ripped a bumper cover with your bumper.

 

In regards to the subwoofer relocation, I did not have a need to remove those supports - nor do I plan to in the near future. This isn't my thread so I won't go into much detail, however the install ended up working with less than 1/4" of clearance in two places across the length of the sub. While being under those panels is not exactly optimal, for me the space savings are worth it and it still sounds decent albeit perhaps a hair less crisp.



I personally would not remove those supports. Surely they're there for some reason, bumpers or not, and it would thus seem Mazda thought they were needed. I know FB's don't have them, but if I'm not mistaken they instead have a small brace over the driveshaft tunnel. Do SA's from different markets have these? If not it might be worth a little more investigation as to why.

 

Pictures of the brace on the drive shaft tunnel?

 

I'm wrong about the small brace, just checked a few photos from one of my parts cars. I could have sworn there was a small brace in the place I circled in blue but alas, I'm crazy:

 

Could the bracing have been moved to under the car or to the sides of the buckets? I'm not looking to remove the bracing but it would be great to know I could if I needed.

 

Here's the underside of that same parts car. I don't see any major changes down there but perhaps someone else may catch something.

 

Seems this is a touchy subject. This is my interpretation. The braces were only on Nort America models as stated earlier. There is no difference between the SA and FB in regards to the bin area except for the Feds mandating the brace the rest of the world did not. At this point my political observation. Late 70s import car were still very suspect to the general population. Of course we have the Chicken Tax, which may not have affected passenger cars but would have at least influenced policy makers through unconscious bias. In conclusion it is my opinion that the braces were arbitrarily required as a additional loop to jump through to make importing just that much more difficult. Flexing American muscle through policy if you will.