I am officially tired of hitting my head on the ceiling on my '84 GSL SE. I'm about 6' dead, roughly 160lbs, and I can't really drive it without doing some level of gangster lean or taking the moon roof out when I have a helmet on for auto cross. The leather on my seats in basically dead now anyways so I'm trying to find something that'll lower me down a good 2, maybe even 3, inches that still allows me to tilt the seat forward to access the smugglers bins. I know I could achieve this by bolting a bucket seat to the floor, but it just wouldn't look right and it's make it a pain to drive considering I almost daily this car. What have you guys done for some period-ish correct seating options?

At the moment I am looking at some 80s recaros out of a VW or Foxbody, but I'm not sure how much lower that would get me and it is my understanding that aftermarket seats usually require some level of bracket modification to get them to fit. What have you guys done to get more head room in a car that was clearly designed for someone much shorter than a well fed American?

 

Pretty much nothing is good. RX-7 seats are low as it is. I acquired a set of NA6 Miata seats for my '81 (it has gray cloth S3 seats in it) but it looks like they will sit higher than the RX-7 units.

I'm 6'4-6'5 and 220, and I fit my '84 with a helmet just fine. When bucked in with a harness, my eye line is just below the sun visor at its furthest point. The harness adds a bit of squoosh, I like to just barely be able to breathe
The Series 3 seats are higher than S1/2. When I scrapped my '85, I swapped its seats into the '84, because about 80k of my butt made them sit a half inch lower than the seats in the '84. That was quite a bit over 100,000mi ago. I've had those seats since 2001

You can kinda sorta see how I sit in this video, from 2011. I'm the one with the black shirt.

 

I have bought a pair of lotus Elise seats because I have the same issue when I wear a racing helmet.
I'll make adapter brackets next month out of steel profiles... I want to do something like this:

https://revlimiter.net/blog/2009/08/...t-encore-post/

 

This is yet another reason to not get a sunroof, it eats up some clearance. Plus you have an 84 model and the seats sit higher. If you get some SA seats they may solve the problem.

 

Weirdly, in both my S3s and my SA, the sunroof was not an issue. Helmet's first point of contact is the doorframe trim.

 

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You gotta let us know how that goes, I've heard of miata guys doing that a lot and it tends to look pretty good.

Luckily mine came with a glass sun roof, so I gain an inch there but if I've got my seat up straight and use that inch I get an awful crick in my neck. I might go digging for some SA seats but at the moment I am looking at these recaros:




They seem to sit lower than my stock seats, but I bet they'll need a custom bracket of some sort. Seats out of an SA would probably be cheaper, but it'd be a matter of either finding a drivers side one on eBay or digging through a scrap yard 3 states away in hopes of finding something in half decent condition.

 

My seats are in good shape ('85 GS) but my head brushes the roof in any comfortable position. I'd like to try AutoX but there's no way I could wear a helmet without leaning too far back to be comfortable. I see lots of aftermarket seats I like but I'm afraid that I'll buy them and not be any lower.

Def following this thread. Interested in that Lotus/Miata thread too, thanks.

 

Alright, I put in my order for those recaros. They should be arriving next week, once I get them in I'll let you guys know if they've helped with head room at all.

 

Those Recaros are really cool. How much did you get them for?

If you can take a few pics of them installed!

 

It was $650 shipped from Cali, but it's only 1 seat not a pair. 1/2 seats means 1/2 the price though, so I'm happy lol​​​​​​

 

Alright so the seat arrived early and after unbolting my stock seat there is good news and bad news.

Good news:
Seat is definitely lower by a solid margin, at least an inch and maybe a bit more. Plus they look great and have better bolstering than the stock seats so I won't slide around as much.



Bad news:
No way in Hell are these suckers bolting onto the stock brackets. The recaros have 6 holes whereas the stock seats have 4. In addition, the slider locks jut up and would get caught on the bottom of the recaro if I just drilled new holes in the brackets. The extra room under the stock seat that makes it so my head hits the roof is also what let's the sliders work.



So, it's looking like I'll need a custom bracket. Drilling holes in the stock bracket wouldn't be too hard, but the sliding system would need to be immobilized or I'd have to make adjustments by removing the seats which would be a pain without a slider. I'll have to put some thought into that.

I did find these guys who make a bracket + slider for a Recaro in an SA/FB:
https://wedgebrackets.com/mazda-rx7-...-brackets.html
But I'd be looking at $170 for a bracket + slider before shipping, which ain't cheap but I know it'll work and I won't have to butcher my stock bracket. Not sure if the slider would raise it or not, I'll have to email them.

For now though I'm at a dead end. Gonna bolt in the stock seats and call it a day for now, I'll update you guys when I get the thing bolted in, one way or another.

 

Looks like about 1/4" of spacer would allow the seats to clear the adjuster.

Also, I didn't realize that you have leather seats. Leather has a lot less squoosh (technobabble term) than cloth, so you sit higher in them, all else equal.

 

What's left of them at least lol. I definitely feel the deference between the cloth recaro and leather stock seat.

A spacer would be a good idea, and cheaper than a $170 bracket and slider. The holes I'd need to drill won't interfere with the original holes anyways, so that might just work perfectly. All I gotta do know is locate the right screws for the seat and pick up a metal drill bit. Might go after that this weekend and see what happens. The stock rails appear to be wide enough for the recaro, but I need to measure before I cut or drill anything.

Good thinking! Now watch that 1/4" be the difference between me fitting with a helmet on and not lol.

 

Minor update,

I picked up the necessary 6M bolts as well as some lock washers and nuts to give me a little bit of space for the slider to work. The nuts seem to give enough space for the sliding mechanism to operate. I've measured and marked where the new holes need to go, just gotta drill. Only possible issue I see going forward is that the rails sit about 1cm wider than with the stock seats. The holes to attach the rails to the car are somewhat oval in shape, so it may still fit without modification. If not, 0.5cm of dremel on both ends should do the trick.

I'll update you guys again once I've got it in with pictures.

 

Wedge can hook you up with brackets. There not cheap but well worth it. Bolt in and go... Hassle free

 

I'm sure it would be, but I'm staring down a healthy rust repair bill this winter and I'm pinching pennies pretty hard. $20 for hardware and drill bits from lowes beats $170+ custom brackets and it won't stop me from bolting in the OEM seat should I ever choose too. Somewhere down the line maybe I'll get a legit bracket, but this seems like it'll work.

 

Wow Ive been looking for a set of those recaros for about a year now. How did you find em and how much did you pay for them?

 

I found them on ebay, but it was only 1 seat and not a pair. Probably why it cost me $500+ $150 shipping instead of the $2000+ I see some guys asking for sets of vintage recaros. Apparently recaros from 80s Foxbody mustang and VW golf's are a similar style if you're up for some junk yard digging.

 

Curious to know how this has worked for you. I'm 6'2" and my head constantly touches the roof of my '85. Trying to find a reasonable way to get lower.
Also, I have a Miata and have installed a set of seats from a Lotus Elise in it. Honestly, best thing I ever did to the car! Those seats are so wafer thin that they give me an additional 2-3 inches of leg and head room. I feel like I'm sitting in the car instead of riding on top of it now! I have given some thought to pulling the passenger seat out of the Miata and trying that in the RX7, but would have to fabricate the brackets (again) and I'm not a fan of the driver and passenger seats not matching.

 

I'm 6'2 as well. My car had a cut headliner when I got it and it adds easily enough headroom to wear a helmet in the car. I also have sparco seats that make it easy to have enough headroom and legroom.

 

I've been meaning to update this thread, just been busy finishing my final exams. The seat is now in and she fits! Plus, now I do too lol.


Overall I'd say I have about 1 finger gap in a more upright position and up to a 3 finger gap in a more relaxed driving position, which is a pretty solid improvement from an upright position putting a crick in my neck and a more relaxed one leaving me almost nothing. The seat is also about an inch more the left which isn't an issue as from stock it always kind of felt like the seat was offset to the right slightly. I did run into some issues though.

For one, the mounting holes from the rails to the chassis on the left side will need a new hole drilled in them. Even though both stock holes might be big enough to accommodate an equal shift on both side, the right mounting point is right up against the transmission tunnel, so really the seat can only move left. In addition, the seat adjusting ***** are pretty wide and the right one runs into the transmission tunnel, so there really is no shift to the right and you're gonna have to drill those holes.



But ya know, it still fits. There were two other minor issues with the stock seat rails as well, that being the bolts used to mount the seat are further back on the front half and the m6 bolts have heads a bit larger than stock. As a result, they interfere with the sliding mechanism. All I did for this was remove the middle 2 out of the 6 bolts, so it's attached with 4 instead of 6. I lose the furthest forward and furthest rearward adjustments, but I still have enough room to remove and install the seat and find a comfortable driving position.


And the second of those two issues were these suckers:

Even with my little nut spacers there wasn't enough room for them to function properly, so I dremeled them off and that was the end of the issue. Still works perfectly fine. Realistically, I could probably remove those little spacers now and be okay but the seat is in and I have headroom now so I don't really feel like it, just make sure that if you go ahead and do that you really smooth out the metal so you don't cut the bottom of your seat. You also need to take that wire off and rebend it for the rails to be actuated properly, but that's easy. Just bend them with a pair of pliers or vice grips and make sure it's tight.

All in all, these older recaros work great and give me headroom without using a modern racing seat that would just look out of place in an 80s interior (at least for me). The passenger side has that exhaust bubble in the floor pan so I'm not so sure as to how that would work, but the drivers side is easy enough. Would a custom seat bracket give you the same head room? Probably, I don't see why not, but a full set of titanium drill bits from harbor freight is like $20 while a custom bracket from a manufacturer is gonna be over $150, maybe over $200 depending on shipping unless you can do it yourself (which I can't). So, your call, but I'm very happy with my results and spent a fraction of the money I though I was going to.