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So I have a 1977 corvette that we have been doing a complete frame off restoration over the last 10 years. One of the things i did during the time the car spent at the body shop was have the floor pans cut dropped about two inches and welded in with reinforcements.This was done to make room for the 2003 Z06 seats I had bought years earlier. I had the seat recovered with new foam ,Leather ,and custom red stitching. They look and feel incredible. The problem comes in that my 5 foot 10 build barely fits behind the wheel and I can not install the t-tops and still fit in the car. So I see two options. Either I remove the the c5 seat tracks that were appropriate for the Z06 seat and mount the seats in a fixed position in the car which would gain me another 2-3 inches of head clearance or I remove the seats altogether and find a pair of 77 seats and rebuild and install them. I know this is a common upgrade. My question is to anyone that has done this conversion. Since the Z06 seats are wider and taller than the originals how did you deal with these obstacles? I would have thought that dropping the floor pans 2 inches would have given us the clearance needed. Since the exhaust pipes are directly below the floor pans we were limited in how far down we could go.
Thanks in advance for any advise
I don't know if this will help in your particular case, but I installed a set of C4 seats in my '59. In order the get the seats as low as possible I modified the C4 seat rails to use the '59 mounting holes. The picture below shows the seat tracks installed on the '59 floor.
Charles
Last edited by cbernhardt; May 14, 2021 at 08:08 AM.
Reason: Mistake on first post - C4 rails NOT '59
Edavis
I will have to search and post pics of the process. I would first caution you to measure your seat wells as well as your clearance of the floorboard to the exhaust pipes. The newer seats are wider and taller than the older seats. I paid a tall price to have my seat wells cut, dropped , and welded back in place only to find out it wasn't enough. I am limited by the exhaust running under the floor. I can barely fit between the steering wheel and the seat with the tilt steering in the upright position. I can not currently install the t top panels and still fit into the car. My fix will be to return to the original 77 seat rails which will drop me around 3 inches hopefully allow me to have the top panels in place. The original seats were shorter and narrower than the 2003 seats I am currently working with. I will try to dig up some pictures
Thanks newvetman but I am working on my C1 1959 corvette and know that Charles has been there done that with what I believe to be minimal mods only to the seat tracks as long as you leave the headrest like he did on his but his wifes the one in the pic was a little more involved.
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C 3 Seat Conversion
