El Kabong

Bought my '04 in '05. Wanted to autocross it, didn't realize when I bought it how much headroom the sunroof would subtract. Got the track bug, and now do the occasional HPDE, with my head cranked to the side. Had to slide my seat way back to get a little head room. I'm 6' 1", with a long torso.

Found a used Elise seat on eBay. It's not the year the seller said it was, so it doesn't have the Probax padding I wanted. Anyhow, since these don't come up on eBay very often, I decided to keep it. The lotus forum folks have a DIY on how to add a little padding, which I may eventually do.

Bought a bracket from Wedge Engineering. Waited a little bit. Got my bracket today, and it's nearly perfect! As perfect as they could have gotten it without having the Elise seat in front of them for a test fit! They sent me a bunch of socket cap screws of different lengths.

No drilling, no filing, bracket mounted easily to the car, and seat mounted easily to the bracket.

Only problem is that seat belt buckle and stalk are not in quite the right position. I may be able to use the original Lotus mounting point on the seat, or I may have to drill and tap a new mounting spot on the flange on the side of the Wedge bracket.

It's weird being this low in the car. My sight lines are off, and it's going to take some getting used to.

My wife's not thrilled, but she drives it maybe 2% of the time. She can see over the steering wheel and she can reach the pedals.

Anyhow, it's not real showy, but I've been after something like this for a while. I know, it's leather, but hey, whaddya gonna do? Got the final push to do it after I found this guy, who managed to put Lotus seats into his miata:

http://revlimiter.net/blog/2009/04/lotus-elise-seats/

TopGear8

iTrader: (3)

Looks good man I like it, goes well with the interior.

What do the seat and bracket weigh together?

El Kabong

I knew somebody was gonna ask that, but I was in such a hurry to get it done tonight that I couldn't take the time to weigh it. That's why I haven't cleaned out the interior.

I dunno - around 24-25 pounds is my guess.

I will hopefully have the seat out this weekend to finish relocating the seat belt buckle. When I have it out I'll weigh it.

RotaryBoi

iTrader: (1)

Looks functional. Like you said, not too showy, but hey... What works, works.

GeorgeH

iTrader: (2)

Nice job. Looks like a reasonably cheap way to get some low, light seats.

I assume Wedge will sell more brackets if needed?

El Kabong

Sure. You have to call and explain what you want. There's no way to email them.

Chris_Bangle

iTrader: (2)

Did you deal with Richard? Was the bracket modified for the Elise seat?

I am in the process of getting a bracket for a Sparco Pro2000 which I need to mount directly to the frame and am having a surprisingly hard time with Wedge over a simple extension of the bracket.

El Kabong

I'm not sure who I dealt with.

My seat essentially acts like a bottom-mount. It's on the original sliders, which have four holes for mounting to the Elise floor pan.

All I had to do was tell them the spacing I needed between the holes front-to-back and side-to-side, and to have them make sure that there was at least 14 inches of clearance for the butt of the seat to be able to slide back and forth.

So it was a pretty easy one for them, I think.

I admit that I wasn't sure that they'd get it right, since it was all handled by phone in ten minutes. No confirmation e-mails, no drawings, no faxes. Just trust. And for me, they got it right.

Chris_Bangle

iTrader: (2)

Thanks, I would not be able to drive in an elise seat (would want one too much). Good looking set up. Spoke to Richard today, hoping to work it out, otherwise I have a brand new red Sparco Pro2000 for sale.

Rotr8

iTrader: (2)

I love It.

J8635621

iTrader: (10)

Doesn't look bad at all. Nice job.

Chrishoky

iTrader: (9)

I like it too, nice and simple and serves a purpose. But I do love the Exige seats more.. those things are sexy.

El Kabong

I wanted an Exige seat, but couldn't get one. Maybe I'll upgrade in a couple years if I've still got the 8.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

yes, but what does Baba Louie think about them?

El Kabong

Seat alone: 22.8 pounds
Seat + Wedge bracket: 30.6 pounds
Power leather seat that I took out: 53.8 pounds.

Headroom - priceless.

rx 8speciale

iTrader: (3)

nice.