v8vette84

Well I picked myself up a nice set of C6 Z06 seats from a member on the forum (Thank you sir!) and considering there seems to be a lack of information regarding C4 to C6 seat swaps I decided to take a few pics to help others. (Yes I'm aware it's basically a C4 to C5 seat swap but I'm not swapping in C5 seats am I?) Let's get to it!

My current seats as they sat needing a new cover on the driver side. (Don't mind the red appearing on the center console side piece, my interior used to be red so I used interior paint on all the hard plastic and it has been wearing off for awhile).


First take your seat back and base off of the plastic shell. Lower cushion is held on by a metal bar "loop" that hooks under the plastic seat shell. This has to be pushed backwards to unhook. The back is held on at the top and bottom. You have to compress the foam sideways to unhook a metal bar from a "hook". The openings of the "hooks" are aimed inwards towards the center of the seat so you need to compress one side sideways and pull the seat foam forwards at the same time and then the other bar will come out after. (You cannot see the bars either so it's kind of a pain if you have never done it) Here is the seat with the foam removed. You can see the "hooks" on the top side of the seat bucket.


Now unbolt the seat bucket from the power track. (Or manual track if you are fortunate enough to not have future or current power seat track problems) It's a 13mm socket and there are 4 bolts holding the bucket onto the track.


Now remove the track from the floor. Again using the same 13mm socket to do it. If your lucky like me my busted track only worked in the forward/backward setting so I was able to move the track to get to the front/rear bolts easily. Unplug the electrical harness and remove the track.
Little dirty I know...


Now this part is up to you. There are 2 ways to do this part. Wire directly to the motors or use the C6 seat switch to control the seat and just run power to the C6 seat wiring harness. (My seats were missing the seat harness so I opted to wire directly to the motors which was fine because I can still use my C4 power seat switch) On the bottom of the C6 seat there are 3 motors that control front up/down, rear up/down, and the seat forward and back just like the C4 power track. I cut the pigtail off my busted C4 track and wired the C6 motors to the pigtail so when I put the seat in all I have to do is plug it in. **FYI: I also realized that the wiring is backwards when connecting the red wire on the C4 pigtail to the red wire on the C6 seat motor. (Every switch is backwards, seat forward is backwards, up is down, etc.) I just opted to swap the pins around in the C4 pigtail seeing that it's quite easy. (sorry I don't have a pic of the wiring that I did but it's very simple). Here is a picture of the factory pinning that comes from the seat switch and goes to the plug that the C4 power seat plugs into.


Another item to modify is the studs that are on both sides of the C6 seats. The studs are where the seat belt bolts to in the C6 and considering the C4 has seat belts attached to the chassis you don't need these. (Plus they get in the way) I used a 4 1/2" angle grinder with a cut off wheel to cut them off. There are 4 total (2 per seat) that need to be cut off. Do a better job that I did on this first cut, I chewed into the seat track a bit and it bothers me...


Now that I vacuumed the carpet we can continue.


You can see the C6 track is the same width as the C4 track but it is longer.




Now finagle the seat into the car (be careful not to scratch the sill trim as I scratched mine bad in a few spots) to get an idea of where the seat will sit. (You will thank yourself now if you decided to wire up the connector before putting the seat in so you can move the seat around and check the mounting positions).
Alright you got the seat into the car to see how you can mount the seat into the car!


The rear seat bolt holes do line up and can be used which is great! I even bolted the seat down in the back to hold it in place and the seat track limits the seat back just the right amount so your not ramming into the part of the body that goes up behind the seat (the waterfall?)


Now here comes another dilemma. Do you drill holes in the floor OR do you create some type of adapter plate the bolts to the existing studs and bolts to the seat's front feet. I opted to just drill holes in the floor as I was nervous that if I got rear ended the mount would just bend and tear/snap the bolt off due to the limited amount of bending strength it might have being 30 years old. So long as you have a decent size plate like a big fender washer under the floor where the new hole is I don't see why it would fail as that's basically all they did from the factory anyways. Here are the front mounts before and after being mounted.




Now all you have to do it tighten the bolts front and back, hook up the seat motor connector if you haven't already and BAM driver side done. The passenger side is a bit easier seeing that mine is manual. I would assume you can do the same procedure for the passenger side as the driver if it's power.

Take the seat/manual seat frame out just like on the driver side.


Now the rear mounts will again work BUT we have another dilemma. The front seat mount closest to the center console is too long and won't sit all the way down and holds the outer front mount off the floor.


My temporary fix for this issue was to cut down the "foot" of the mount a bit so it just rests on the taller height on the bump the foot was hitting. The passenger seat needs a bracket made so that cut down foot can actually mount to the floor but I haven't done one yet. (nobody ever rides in that seat since our newborn arrived so I have time to create a bracket)


Then again I drilled a hole and made another plate for under the floor and bolted the outer foot down to the floor.


And that's it! Enjoy your C6 seats! Don't get hung up on people saying they won't fit, they fit GREAT! they feel right at home in my 84'.

I personally LOVE the way the C6 seats feel compared to the C4 seats.

Plus they look awesome!

(You can also see the gouges/scratches in the sill that I mentioned earlier from taking the seat in and out so be careful!) I would put a towel on the sill if I had to do it over.





Hope you all appreciate this thread! It took forever to type up then proofread! haha

Dt86

Nice write up. Those seats look right at home in there. A good alternative to the ridiculously expensive C4 seats.

TorchTarga94

They actually look right at home in there. Albeit a little on the larger side. Great job!!

383vett

Great job!

VikingTrad3r

what a great upgrade!!! Possible to show more photos? doors closed so we can see how it looks different from outside?

v8vette84

Yea I'll grab a few more photos today. The seats are a little taller but honestly I don't mind at all. The 84' Base seats I never felt like they would support the head if you got rear ended. The headrests seemd a bit low and I'm not even that tall. These go right up behind your head so they fit me great.

Overall these seats are not much wider than the C4 seats. They still have space around them.

v8vette84

The best part was that is really wasn't that hard to do. The fact that the rear bolts lined up was a miracle! I actually read a post from a guy on another forum that said that he had to grind off the 4 original studs then drill 4 mounting holes for the C6 seat. All 4 of my original seat studs are still in place, I just didn't use the front 2.

v8vette84

Also if anyone wants the seat tracks I'll give them away free just pay for shipping. (No idea of the driver power track has many good parts but it does go forwards and backwards!) The seats (foam/covers and buckets) make an offer. The driver seat cover is garbage but the passenger is fine, foam is ok from what I remember when I put these covers on. (They are fake leather covers, hence why the driver seat wore out after about 4 years of frequent summer use). I don't have the space for these pieces so I don't want them around.

v8vette84

A few more pictures for you gents.

JrRifleCoach

NICE!

Corvette Forum Editor

Great thread, figured the front page crowd would think so too...
https://www.corvetteforum.com/articl...rior-c6-seats/

The Snowman

That is an awesome upgrade! Def something to think about when it's time to work on the interior in my car. �

FASTAZU

Great job, they look assume.

v8vette84

Hey thanks a lot! I did not realize how long it takes to write somthing like this up and it's not even that complicated. haha

v8vette84

I wrote this thread to help out members who were having trouble finding information on the C4>C6 seat swap. Hopefully this thread helps somebody in the future.

86C4Z51

The idea is nice, but I have to dissent... I like the sport seat features on my seats and frankly with new foam they aren't uncomfortable like the homepage said.

I suppose if I found a set of seats like you did, I would be sorely tempted. It's not like these are collector cars...

I'm glad the swap worked out for you and don't mean to rain on your parade; it's just not for me.

v8vette84

Different strokes for different folks!

I had the 84' base seats and found myself constantly leaning forward funny and it would hurt the middle of my back. Well not really hurt it but fatigue the middle of my back would be a better description. I didn't hate my C4 seats but I find the C6 seats fit me better and just feel a lot nicer. To me there is a reason they are different from the C4/C5 seats. If the C4 seats truly were the best they would have not paid to redesign the seats on the C5 development.

Like I said everyone has their own preference. Good to see the feedback regardless! Thanks man!

v8vette84

Well I spent about 10 horus of seat time in the car this weekend and the seats were great! If I still had the factory seats I would have had a sore back big time. I'm very happy with these seats.

IowaClass65

Awesome write up!! Does any body know if the stock non Z06 seats would fit as well. I assume so, but it is best to make sure. Thanks!

dizwiz24

great write up.

I personally like the ‘fighter jet’ 84-93 seats better than any of the newer (or older) gen seats

however im 5’11 and 150 lbs . We are all different and I can see where others may prefer a wider bottom cushion.

nice to see that this is possible