July 28, 2003
My new Sparco Roadster seat was installed on 14 June. It was a lot of work because the miata isn't standard sized and I had to fabricate mounting plates and I had to remove substantial sections of the seat.
The Roadster seat is very comfortable, with a fixed back, and I mounted it without slide rails to get maximum head room. You can see in the pictures below that the original seatback and the Roadster seatback are at about the same height, but the Roadster is much taller than the original seatback. I now can sit in the car with my head not sticking above the windshield, which is a major safety issue to me! I believe I dropped about 4 inches.
There are three parts of the seat that I had to remove. The lip on the bottom had to be removed or else I would have needed a 1" spacer to lift the seat to clear the ground or the rails (had I installed them). Also, the tunnel gets in the way of the right front corner. Last, the door hits the left shoulder wing so I cut off about 3/4". Here's a picture with the trimmed areas marked in blue. Note that the fabric easily slips off so you can trim the fiberglass, and then replace the fabric. You'll not even notice the difference.
I didn't take pictures of the mounting plate. It wasn't pretty, to say the least. Essentially, I went to the hardware store and bought a piece of flat steel, 2"x1/8" and made two rails. I bent them to fit the floor, drilled the holes and bolted them in place. Then I took some aluminum strips and bolted the two rails together. I removed the rails from the car, bolted them to the seat, and then put the whole contraption back in the car.
Here are some pictures of my miata with its new Boss Frog double hoop roll bars that I installed.
