Fitting Replica GT3 bucket seats to 996 GT3

[hendy]

I know that a few on here have replaced their sports seats with the replica buckets from ebay.

I am currently looking into doing this and am wondering which side mounts etc people have used. The person I bought the seats from suggested I use Recaro ones, but there are several designs, the sales assistant at Demon Tweaks couldn't help and said that all brackets were non-returnable as they are a special order item.

Does anyone know if I need to buy these from Porsche, or Recaro, of if there are any universal ones available?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[hendy]

s_mcneil said:

I have just done this. I bought the heavy duty side brackets from Design911, they come with seat belt mounting for each side too. You don't need new runners, I found out this the hard/expensive way. I bought a pair of OEM 997 part number GT3 runners, took them out the box and found them to be almost identical to the one's fitted to the existing comfort seats. Plus the new runners came with no bolts. All I did was undo the 4 torx screws and 4 bolts that attached each of the old seats to the runners and then used them to mount the side brackets, perfect fit. The four bolts holding the runners to the car are E12 torx socket type. Use this DIY from rennlist http://gallery.rennlist.com/gallery/albuq41

Fantastic! That's exactly what I was after. Thank you very much for the advice!

[hendy]

I am hoping my brackets should arrive today, in which case I will have a go at fitting over the weekend time permitting.

Will post pics etc. if I do, otherwise would appreciate others pics / tips also.

[hendy]

robmug said:

Some (all actually) of the reolica GT3 seats I've seen are awful. Quality of the carbon etc looks OK, but the seats are weak and DANGEROUS. Noticeably flexible, which the Recaros are not.

Hendy - with the ones you've got, how much can you flex them with them on the floor?

FIA testing for race seats (the original recaros almost certainly reach this standard, even if not stickered) i use to incoude a 30g rearwards impact with a 75kg dummy in the car. That's 30x the 75kg bodyweight. (I have some experience of FIA seat testing at MIRA some years ago)

If you can flex your replica seats, then please consider what 5x, 10x or even 30x your entire bodyweight will do to the replicas.

The replica seats are not made to any standard, other than aesthetics. There are plenty of parts that I would happily use replicas, but seats are not one of them.

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the advice. I haven't received the seats yet, I am expecting to take delivery today. I will see how flexible they are once I receive them and will only fit them if I feel happy. Otherwise, they may be going back on ebay where they came from!

Cheers,
Simon

[hendy]

Not sure if Mr F took any photos, but I managed to install mine with no problems. Used the guide above with Design 911 Brackets and the existing runners from the sports seats.

A few pics I took are here :

http://s295.photobucket.com/albums/mm154/r1hendy/0...