Fitting MX5 seats and wiring heating
Discussion
I know many cringe at the thought of fitting something from a Mazda but on a long run the standard seats are very poor in terms of comfort and support. I plan on keeping my originals and refurbishing them but I've bought some MX5 mk2.5 seats as below and intend to re-colour and fit them (marks are just water from cleaning them)
Has anyone any advice? I've read a number of threads and looking at using the furniture clinic kit. I have a compressor and small spray gun so will be using that rather then the aerosols but there's a suede/synthetic part on the rear that I guess i can't colour so thinking of leaving this as it will match my blue car/carpet.
What about wiring the heating in? I have the MX5 switches but does the Chimaera have wiring already? 1998 450
Has anyone any advice? I've read a number of threads and looking at using the furniture clinic kit. I have a compressor and small spray gun so will be using that rather then the aerosols but there's a suede/synthetic part on the rear that I guess i can't colour so thinking of leaving this as it will match my blue car/carpet.
What about wiring the heating in? I have the MX5 switches but does the Chimaera have wiring already? 1998 450
didnt bother with the electric part I hate heated seats and mine is a fare weather car anyway I have fitted MX5 seats and have found them infinitely for comfortable and secure than the originals. With a grey interior I was lucky to find that Mazda's Nevada Grey leather was a good match. As said they need to go on the original runners to keep them as low as possible. Even then a tall driver may find them too high.
I did wire in the heated seats and find them great! Although I had the Mazda switches, I couldn't find a suitable spot for them so ended up using two button switches similar to those used for the boot release and instrument lights and mounted one beside the instrument button and one in a similar position on the passenger side. These earth two relays each of which have a fused ignition switched supply. A new fused power supply from the battery feeds the seats via these relays. The seats themselves contain the thermostat.
Dougal
I did wire in the heated seats and find them great! Although I had the Mazda switches, I couldn't find a suitable spot for them so ended up using two button switches similar to those used for the boot release and instrument lights and mounted one beside the instrument button and one in a similar position on the passenger side. These earth two relays each of which have a fused ignition switched supply. A new fused power supply from the battery feeds the seats via these relays. The seats themselves contain the thermostat.
Dougal
indigochim said:
What about wiring the heating in? I have the MX5 switches but does the Chimaera have wiring already? 1998 450
You could run a fused battery and ignition supply to underneath each seat and fit the relays to the bottom of each seat, now all you would need to do is fit a nice on/off button to the plastic trims of each seat to control the relaysI have the same seats in the same blue/grey colour
Used the Mazda runners and yes they sit a little higher but that's useful at my age, means I can get in and out.
Downside is my head is close to the tensioners if the Surrey Roof is on. prepared to live with that for the better seating. The old Chimaera seats hurt my back after about 20 or 30 minutes
Used the Mazda runners and yes they sit a little higher but that's useful at my age, means I can get in and out.
Downside is my head is close to the tensioners if the Surrey Roof is on. prepared to live with that for the better seating. The old Chimaera seats hurt my back after about 20 or 30 minutes
Penelope Stopit said:
You could run a fused battery and ignition supply to underneath each seat and fit the relays to the bottom of each seat, now all you would need to do is fit a nice on/off button to the plastic trims of each seat to control the relays
Sounds like a good idea. I've found the wiring info on an MX5 site for the pinouts. I've also founds some small neat looking switches that have a high and low setting. Not sure if the Mazda seats have a facility for anything other than on or off.indigochim said:
Yes they do but I think it's just one lever that reclines or tilts forward I'll have to have a better look. I rushed cleaning them as it had started raining.
I think I will keep an eye out for a set then. I thought they were fixed and I wouldn't be able to get into the cubby holes behind the seats.indigochim said:
SMB said:
Search foamectamy for how you reduce the seat base depth so you sit in the car rather than on it and too high. It’s easy to do .
I've checked out videos of that. I'm going to see how I get on when they're fitted before I do anything drastic.indigochim said:
Penelope Stopit said:
You could run a fused battery and ignition supply to underneath each seat and fit the relays to the bottom of each seat, now all you would need to do is fit a nice on/off button to the plastic trims of each seat to control the relays
Sounds like a good idea. I've found the wiring info on an MX5 site for the pinouts. I've also founds some small neat looking switches that have a high and low setting. Not sure if the Mazda seats have a facility for anything other than on or off.If you are able to split the elements you could then wire the elements in series for low heat and parallel for high heat
The other option is to measure the resistance of a standard (Not Seperated) seat element, once you know the resistance you could buy some wire wound resistors of a similar value
Now if you were to fit a wire wound resistor into the low heat switch circuit the seat would heat-up to approximately half of the full heat temperature
I have overheated thinking this out
Dougal9887 said:
I doubt you would need that.
They don't get particularly hot, not like modern 3 heat position types, and the thermostat cuts them off pretty quickly.
Dougal.
Did I talk to you about these at Barton Aerodrome a couple of weeks back? If so thanks for the tips.They don't get particularly hot, not like modern 3 heat position types, and the thermostat cuts them off pretty quickly.
Dougal.
Just to add some info on this for anyone else thinking of doing this.
There's been a video posted of someone else fitting some to there here.
I've now fitted the seats (still need to do the wiring) and they're a night and day improvement over the TVR ones. I'm not going to re colour them for now as I don't think they look too bad blue in a blue car. I may change the door card carpet for alcantara that matches the back of the seats to blend them in.
A mate cut down the Mazda runners and welded on new bolts at 330mm apart and front to back. These fitted perfectly on the passenger seat which is what we'd taken measurements from unfortunately the drivers seat the front to back distance was much less than this and so last minute adjustments where made before fitting.
The seats do flip forward to allow some access to the storage behind. The don't tip as far as the TVR seats but sufficient for access. My passenger seat doesn't appear to be as high as the one in the video although I can't raise/lower the roof with it in a couple of positions I don't see this being an issue though.
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