Has anybody lowered their stock seats? I'm not THAT tall a person (at 6'5" 290 lbs and longer legs then a torso), but my head is VERY close to the roof of my '02 Z06, and with a helmet on my head hits the roof and makes my body scrunch down. Not a good position to be in when drag racing, let alone RRing or Auto-Xing...

I figure there have to be some tall folks out there that have run into this problem and had the seat frame modified to lower it down. There looks to be at least an inch or two space between the bottom of the seat and the floor. I just did a quick look, so I don't know if any motors or electronics hang down and would interfere with this...

Any leads, stories, pics, etc would help me tremendously.

Thank you all in advance.

 

Do a search... there is a procedure to remove a couple of springs which lowers the seat an inch or two. I too can use the room but don't want to screw up the ride
mike :flag

 

I've tried doing searches but with no luck. Can sombody point me in the right direction to do this mod? I'd rather not remove springs either, but if that is what it takes, then I will do that. I'd really rather cut and weld the seat frame to lower it...

Thanks for the reply though.

 

Where you at Sac raceway last night. I think I said hi to you on the way out. Anyway you could lower if you take out all the power motors under the seat and permently attach it. Or buy one of those Sparco after market seats.

 

Wicked C5, yep, that was me at Sacto last night. Nice looking car you got there. I didn't notice the RK Sport hood. I think I want that hood, but I'd like to see what it looks like underneath first. I bought a VFN 2 3/4" (stock style) cowl hood for my '96 Z-28 and wasn't thrilled with the rest of it. From the top it looks great, but the front edge and the underside are a bit ugly.

Anyway, I'll have to go out there and yank the seat out and take a look. It is only 4 nuts, right? :) Can't be that hard. I've torn my '96 Z-28 down to just about a bare shell, so this car isn't any different. Just hard to keep tearing into a brand new car like I have been doing. Not looking foward to the N2O install... It will be my 10th N2O install so far :/

 

At Bragg-Smith, their C5s all have the seat springs removed from the seats, gets you a few more inches, and doesn't hurt the feel at all. I'm sorry I can't provide details on how to do it though.

Sam

 

Good to know. Thanks for the reply and information, Sam Lin. I'll go yank the seat out and see what it will take to remove the springs... I'm guessing this will allow my butt to sit down farther. I wonder if this will result in a much shorter lifespan of the leather though. I'd assume this will help hold me in place a bit better too.

I wonder why Bragg-Smith does this? To fit the few tall folks who go there, or to give more support from the seat? I'll fire off an e-mail to them and ask I guess :)

 

ZOSIC, I believe all that's involved in removing the springs is simply unhooking them. This thread was around back in June-July, so you may want to check back farther in the archives. More recently, someone noted that after he had removed the four springs, after awhile he was unhappy with how it felt. Someone else mentioned that he only took out two of the four, and liked that better, while still gaining some headroom.

 

Bragg-Smith take out the seat springs to help with correct seating position. They stress the need to be able to use the large muscles of your legs on the pedals. If you lower the back of the seat, and raise the front of the seat, you have more leverage with your leg, and thus more power to hit the pedals (mostly brake). This also entails moving your seat up toward the dash to get better leverage. I'm 6'4", and I sit much closer to the dash that you would think. Almost to the point where my knees hit the dash (I back it off about an inch). It takes a while to get used to, but now it's totally natural for me. Let us know how hard it is to take the springs out, and what you think about the change. :seeya

 

How did you do at Sac. We should hook up sometime when you want to go back there. Anyways I really like the Rk Sport hood and I get lots of complements on it. Nice Z06 by the way. :cool: My real name is Reid. Maybe I'll see you out there sometime. I don't go to offen because my house is 90 miles from the track I live in Pleasanton

 

Thank you all for the information on this subject. I'll pull two of the seat springs out first and see if that helps. If not, I will pull the other two out. I'm just thinking that this will allow the leather to sag down with my weight and ruin it or wear it out faster.

Hey Reid, nice to "meet" you too. Your car did look sharp, but I didn't notice the hood. I do like how those carbon fiber Borla tips looked. They would looke good with the carbon fiber exhaust plate I have, but I'm not going to ditch the factory Z06 exhaust. Looks and sounds killer. If it ends up being the thing that ends up holding me back, then I will consider another exhaust. I'd love to get a ride in your car and hear the XR1 exhaust though.

How I did??? Best run so far is a 12.47 @ 113.4mph with a 1.99 short time. This is on a '02 Z06 with a 160 thermo, fan switch and TRIC intake. The best the Wed before without the TRIC was 12.6 @ 114.8mph with 2.08 short time. I just found out today that I was supposed to do a idle relearn when I put the intake on. Not doing this caused the car to go lean and set the check engine light. I also pushed the filter onto the titanium tube too far and created turbulance. I'll be back out there Wed and will hit the dyno before the track. I'm sure I'll do much better.

I used to live in Vacaville which was nice. 30-35 minutes to and from the track. Now I am in Chico which is about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes away. Not as cool, but still worth it. It too is about 90 miles away.

Did you see the green '96 Z-28 running 10's? That is still a street legal car that he drives most everyday and he lives in Pleasanton as well.

We'll have to hook up and check each others car out...

 

When you take your seat out remove the two center springs and leave the two outter springs in. That lets you keep the spring and wire setup intact in case you want to reinstall the center springs again. This is what I have done on my car.

I was at Sac the other night and I was driving the White C5 convertible w/blk top... The car is not running right... so the car was not running to potential on Friday night. :(

vetterdstr :seeya

 

Hey vetterdstr, I saw you there, but never got a chance to talk to you. I think we have talked in the past. I had/have an all white '96 Z-28 hardtop with the emblems removed and license plate WHYT LIE, running nitrous. Maybe you remember. It was at least a year or two ago though.

Yes I was planning on only removing the two center springs. That made sense :) Still give some support, but allow more sagging for more headroom.

Whats wrong with your car? Why wasn't it running to full potential? I found out that when I put the TRIC on, I was supposed to do a idle relearn and not doing so caused me to set off some fuel trim system lean on bank 1B and 2B. I also pushed the filter on too far and caused turbulance. Makes sense now that I lost MPH with the TRIC. I'm going to dyno and be back at the track this Wed to see if it helps out :)

 

Ok, I thought you looked familiar! :eek: I am having what seems to be a problem with the new Crane 1.8 roller rockers. They may have re-adjusted themselves and need further adjustment. I am contacting Crane tomorrow to get more info for a re-adjustment of the rockers. The car should run much better after that.. or else the Rockers go back to stock!! :(

vetterdstr :cheers:

 

Well I'm going to yank the seat out tonight and see if I can remove the two middle springs. I'll report back what I find and how it feels.

Why did you put the Crane 1.8 rockers in your car? What is the fastest you've gotten out of it? I saw you run some 13.3 @ 106 or 109, right?

 

Hey I had some runs at 102 on Friday!! :( My car was not that slow right off the show room floor!! That shows everyone that something is wrong with the car.

In the past I have run a 12.82 @ 111 and could usually run 12.9's all night. Since then I have added the LS6 intake, TPIS longtube headers and the Crane 1.8 roller rockers. I added this to the car for more HP. The Crane Rockers lift the Valves higher for more top end and you can tell the diff with the new Mods. I should have been running consistantly in the mid 12's if not faster... but the car was on its knees on friday night. Hopefully I will have it running correctly by the end of the week or shortly there after.

vetterdstr


[Modified by vetterdstr, 6:44 AM 10/15/2001]

 

In case you haven't done it yet, here is how I removed my springs:
Remove targa or drop convertible top if able
Move telescoping steering wheel fully forward
Run seat rearward, remove plastic trim covers (pull the pins) from front, remove nuts
Run seat forward, remove rear nuts
Get a 2x4 about 18" long, tip seat forward and brace that way with wood. Or remove the electric leads and totally remove seat from car
There are 4 coil springs at the back of the metal "trampoline" under the seat cushion. Use vice-grips to grab and remove as desired. Save'em, the parts catalog did not show them available as a separate part.
Reinstall the seat, torque nuts to 31 lb/ft (check service manual to be sure)

I took out all 4 springs, this gave me about 1 inch of extra headroom initially. After a few months, the seat had sagged another inch (2" total). This makes the seat bottom more concave than flat, which is very slightly less comfortable on long trips but much better when cornering. And I can now see straight out the windshield, instead of peeking under the top tinting. I plan to keep it this way!