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I wanted to make a post of my Tan to Red conversion. This is my 95 Chaste White FD with original tan interior. I did not like the tan interior and after browsing the forum, I was inspired by some pictures of some red interior. I went on hunting for some OEM red carpet and seats but that was extremely hard and not possible. I considered JDM but I'd rather have a "perfect fit" as I have an OCD with OEM fitness.
I contacted TFENT (Tom Frederico Enterprise) to check on pricing on red carpet and it seemed within my budget. This is probably the first red carpet he made for an RX-7, which is NSX Type R red. I ordered it a day before I purchased seats (bad mistake). I found some OEM red seats on the Facebook group and when I picked them up in person, it did not meet my expectations (from the sale pictures). These were supposedly re-upholstered OEM red but way too dim (Burgandy-Orangish) for me and definitely did not match the carpet I ordered a day before.
Now being that I am a family man with a toddler, I don't have much time on the weekends to even drive my car so the next logical choice was to have my local mechanic/body guy install this. The time it will take me to install will be immensely at least 3x because of my lack of space and tools to work on a car.
This post is mainly for detailed pictures and information/reference for those that want to do a carpet removal in the future. So now I will let the pictures do the talking.
Seats removed first.
The original instructions didn't require a dash removal but we wanted to do a proper job so the teardown begins.
That's when we discovered that there's pieces of carpet covering the other holes. I began to question if a full piece was enough.
The e-brake area was supposedly the trouble one. I was told that if I needed to make adjustments there, I would need to either cut the carpet or remove it. I decided to not cut the new carpet.
Now we test the seats. It did not match, it was orange compared to the carpet!
This is where I found the magic of dyeing. I did not know how well it stayed, but if I found out sooner, I would have considered dyeing the OEM carpet instead. Here is a sample of the carpet compared to the current red seats and the tan seats.
I chose flame red to get the “Spirit R” red colored seats.
We had 2 days before the car show so I made the mistake of rushing him. Only had 1 day to bake and dry the “dye”.
Seats installed.
So overall this was a but different than I had imagined. But I like the end result. Some notes: the dye started flaking in the wear areas where you sit. I wouldn't say it's a bad temporary solution. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't have bought those seats. I would have gotten them reupholstered or purchase a set of Recaros. The carpet was the biggest challenge my body guy had and it was a lot of time and labor $$ to get it to fit. There was a lot of trimming involved and test fitting. The best option was definitely OEM carpet. Don't make my mistake.
From the photos you can see how glossy the seats came out, a lot of light is reflecting from the surface giving a somewhat plastic feel to the finish. Whereas real leather would absorb more light. Reupholstering is the way to go, but crazy expensive when using quality napa leather.
From the photos you can see how glossy the seats came out, a lot of light is reflecting from the surface giving a somewhat plastic feel to the finish. Whereas real leather would absorb more light. Reupholstering is the way to go, but crazy expensive when using quality napa leather.
I didn't decide on the floor mats yet. Currently using a plain black one. The suspension needs some upgrades before I work on any more interior unless I see a good deal on seats/floor mats. Yes, napa leather is crazy expensive...
05-27-17, 10:37 PM
