lets talk stock seats
 

i am a CHEAP man. Abraham Lincoln cries when I let a penny go.

that being said, I HAVE to do something about the seats in my car. the butlerbuilt aluminum is great for autocross, but a serious killer on my back and neck on the street.
I have 96-97 NA seats sitting here. faded, torn, foam deterioration, etc. and they are black.

what I want to do: recover the 96-97 NA seats with tan upholstery. perform a selective foam repair/foamectomy/ contour reshaping for my screwed up back. add seat heaters, and fresh headrest speakers.

I know how to do all this, and have done it multiple times with various seats of different eras. (most recently an NB seat, a neon R/T seat, and a GMT400 Silverado seat). I have seat heaters, speakers, various durometers of foam, hog rings, etc on the shelf.

so, now that it sounds like this thread is pointless because I know what im doing, I get to my questions.

the least expensive, and best reviewed upholstery kits I can find are the sierra auto tops. they're $100 for both seats, versus triple for the next ones that I can find that actually fit the 96-97 seats.

these, in particular

but they are made for the 1990-1995 seat base foam. apparently wont work with the 96-97

having never seen a 96-97 seat side by side with a 90-95 seat, is it possible to add the missing foam at the leg area and make these fit? or are the side bolsters, hog ring wires, etc all in different places as well?

if im unable to easily modify the 96-97 foams, is it possible to get a pair of passengers side foams, and use one on the drivers?

like I said, im trying to do this as cheaply as I can. this car is a toy, not a daily. and honestly, id rather dump money into power, air conditionoing, and seat time.

I don't know if I can add much to answer whether or not it'll work, but I did find this helpful site below that compares the differences. It seems like there'd need to be some significant reconstructive action needed on the seat bottom to make it work without a bunch of fabric saggyness. Good luck.

Miata seat types

I can tell you I have leatherseats.com full leather seats in my car, the look,the fit, the feel is all absolutely fantastic.

as for the other stuff i dunno

I don't know anything about the Butler seats. I have Kirkeys and they are pretty comfortable. Even so, I took some seat upholstery foam and tucked it between the seat back and the cover for lumbar support and added a thin layer beneath my ass for long trips. It is nice to be able to move the lumbar piece around by just sticking your arm back behind you while you're driving.

The foam is different enough that if you want them to fit well at all, you're better off getting the earlier seat foam. The pans are pretty the same stamping but there are year to year differences (that are all attached to the same basic pan) The 96-97 seats also have the seat belt receptacle on a slider attached to the seat pan, so you'd have to trim the earlier foam to fit around it, and cut some holes for the slider and it's mount. If you get just the foam from an early NA seat, there are some that have a metal hump spot welded into the pan in the thigh area vs all foam.

Assuming the NA8 rail mounted belt receiver is similar to the NB one you shouldnt need to do any trimming.

I put NA6 seats into my NB last night, and the NB rails fit fine, without any modifications needed to foam or anything.



Regardless, the NA8 retained the earlier seatbelt mounts, so if you want you can simply buy a pair of NA6 stalks and bolt them in, just like an NA6.
(NB doesnt have the captive nuts, so you'll need to drill and put in a backing plate like mounting a harness)

FWIW the '94-95 seats came with sliders too.

So, i was able to score some REALLY rough early seats for $35. After i get seats torn down, mixed and matched, ill fill you all in on what it entails. Since these are for my nb, and i have modified the tunnel for my 5 points, ill be keeping the 96-97 frames at a minimum.