Foamectomy - do it!

After sitting in a car with it done, I tried this the other day - its such a good thing to do.

For the un-enlightened - This works on a standard 1pc MX5 seats in a MK1.

It may or may not work on other stock mazda seats - I would imagine it does though.

The standard seats are nice looking and a good shape, but there not very snug.

You can foamectomise your seats in two halfs.

I started with the top. Drop the hood. 4 14mm bolts, holding the seat rails to the car. Possibly a 5th holding your seatbelt stalk to the tunnel.

Pull it out, flip it over.

At the rear, base of the seat back is a straight flap of material - under here are 7 hog rings holding the cover together. Snip em with sidecutter, pull the remains out of the foam. Flip the seat back over.

Pull the flap of material through the join in the base/back - pull out the foam piece from the centre of the seat - keep this safe in case you want to replace it. Reattach the cover using sturdy zip ties, pulling the cover tight. Vac out 15yrs of filth from the now visible seam in the centre piece of your seat.

Bolt seat back in.

Revel in the new found 'bucketyness' of your standard seat. For free, which is the best price.

Team up with a CG lock for ultimate fit.

Seriously, its worth doing, makes the seat a much better fit and the bolsters wrap around much further.

The only visible difference is the seat cover looks a tiny bit 'baggy' if you dont fold it all back neatly when your re fitting it.

Step 2 is to remove foam from the base, but this is more involved as it involves cutting foam with an electric carving knife. This also allows you to drop down an inch or so, useful for gangly people - I havent done this so far as I'm not too bothered about sitting lower.

No difference. Theres tonnes of foam in there. It really is miles better. Completely reversible too.

any chance anyone could add some pictures to this thread; like the sound of it but worried the seat will look crap with loose covers.

Some quick snaps as requested, apologies for the mess! I should really clean it...






The last photo has the foam from the seat back used as a butt cushion, covered in a fetching brown pillow case. Passenger seat is standard for reference.

Give that car a hoover out and you'll save 10-15kg in dirt and crumbs!

Glad your pleased with the results simon. Im still well chuffed with mine, its how the seats should be in a car like this

Foamectomised mine this morning And got some pics during the procedure for people (like me!) who are better with something more "visual" to put them at ease as to really how easy this is to do! Even I managed it without damaging anything and I'm the cock-up king

So here is the weapon I used to get around the seat bolts issue - In fact it was only one bolt that caused me to make this (the last one incidentally - why is it always the last bloody bolt that causes you problems!).



After flipping the seat over these are the rings holding the material together, due to a lack of cutting equipment I found bending them open with a small flathead screwdriver worked well. Note that in the picture I'd already removed a couple of them




Afterwards you should be left with this, the flap at the top of the picture will pull through to the front once you've tilted the seat back and you'll be left with it looking like the second picture.




Once you've removed those clips using whatever method you used previously, the piece of foam will just pull out. Now if your girlfriend/wife complains that MX5s aren't "child-friendly" show her these. Look! Floats for their swimming lessons!



Then just pull the flap of material back through and cable tie, here is a picture of what it should look like. Don't pull the flaps too tight and overlap them, just do it like in the photos and they'll look just as good as the standard seats




Flip the seat over and you'll have one foamectomised seat, ready to fit back to your car!

The foam in the backrest comes out in one piece I think, its the stuff in the base that gets hacked.

Did this yesterday and it's a great free mod that takes no time at all. It feels like the seat should have been like this as standard! Much better lateral support.

On mine it wasn't necessary to take the seat out, which saved time.

is this a mk1 only trick or will it work with my 2.5 seats as well ??? there is pretty much no lateral support as std so would be a welcome mod - i just dont want to tear my seat apart for nothing !!