m1bjr

If you don't need the slides, then its dead esy to make some brackets yourself.
Done this on a few cars over the years.
Especially buckets - very easy.

s2konroids

Didnt some guy on here hackaway (DIY job) at the stock rails and thus lowered the seat a small amount?

m1bjr

See Nicks linky.
I dont know why (and its too cold to visit the garage) you couldnt just alter the end eyelets?
They appear to be riveted on to the rails eache end, I suspect they could be cranked up and welded?

Could be a little earner for soemone there..

ColinG

Partly inspired by this thread, and having some idle time on my hands, I took the driver's seat out of my S today to give it a good clean and to check out the potential lowering options.

m1bjr - looking at the eyelets on the ends of the rails, the rivet that you can see provides the end stop for the travel I think, at least for rearwards movement. At the rear there's also a bead of weld and inch long ish on both sides of the eyelet plate on each rail. At the front I think there's a spot weld behind the rivet.

Lowering that could be achieved by repositioning/fabricating new eyelets on the ends of the rail is limited by the clearance between the inboard (gearbox side) rail and floorpan for RHD UK cars. I reckon you could get half an inch maximum, and then the release mech for fore/aft movement may snag the carpet as it moves downwards towards the floorpan when you pull the lever. It's deceiving as there's quite a bit of space below the outboard rail, shame it's not the same on the inboard.

Shelling out nearly £300 for the BYS rail to lower the seat a little doesn't appeal. Personally for me, I think I'd like to lower only the rear of the seat as far as possible to gain some head room (limited by it hitting the floorpan, so 1" or 1.5" max), and keep the front as is to give a little extra under thigh support, but the front may need to come down a little too to keep it comfy and my knee away from the steering wheel. Looking at the seat rails, working up from the bottom, there's the rail (bolted to the floor pan), the slider (slides in the rail) and then there's another vertical plate fixed to the rail by six rivets on each side. The seat base and back fix to this plate. I'm thinking, is it possible to remove this plate and fabricate a new one with the seat base and back fixtures in a lower position - effectively keep the original rails and sliders, make a new plate on which to fix the seat base and back.

I need to find a spare OEM seat rail set to get fiddling with...

ColinG

News just in - the S is more than driveable sitting on the carpet and leaning on the rear bulkhead! Just had to move mine sans seat, probably only works for us lanky streaks though.

Another option I'm mulling over is to make some fixed brackets that put the seat base as far back and low as possible.

m1bjr

Good Intel there Colin, thanks.

I wasnt aware of the inner rail clearance issue, but I'm sure the BYS only drops 25mm or so anyhow so maybe thats how they do it?
Chop the brackets and tack the ends back on - very easy to do with a TIG plant at the car.

See an install here for the BYS with pics on the 06 car:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=431345

Nick Graves

I'd forgotten about the cat bulge too!

Honestly, I'd only really need 1-2 cm drop, which is why it's too much hassle for me. Probably a tiny cut n' shut of some s/h OEMs would be ideal...

ColinG

From looking at the various photos of the BYS rails I think they achieve the height reduction by having the rail itself almost on the carpet gaining ~10mm (similar to the eyelet mods discussed previously), the rail mech itself may be slightly shallower gaining ~5mm and the position of the seat mounting bolts/holes relative to the rail are lower gaining another ~15mm (when fitted there's less gap between plastic cover on the seat back angle adjustor and the rail on the BYS than there is with OEM).

gt750boy

Crap. Taka Kaira's website is down.

Nick Graves

Blame Shintoism - they've probably taken the server down a bar to get it pissed...