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Swap in a Porsche seat?

4K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  SneakyPete 
#1 ·
I happen to have a drivers seat out of a 2009 Porsche Cayman laying
around (sometimes one lucks onto salvage stuff) and wonder if it's
possible to swap it into a 2012 Mazda 3? I've spent a fair bit of time
in one of these seats and they are far more comfortable for long drives
than the 3 seat. Are there any off the shelf bracket adapters?
Or might I have to have one custom built if I really wanted to
pursue this mod?
 
#5 · (Edited)
Los Angeles. San Fernando Valley.

I measured both seats, and they are both 20" wide. And the
sliders are almost the same width apart. On the Mazda the
sliders mount to four little brackets, the brackets are bolted
to the floor. However, the sliders look almost like they are
riveted to the brackets. There are two bolts, both with
round heads on either side. It's not clear whether it's possible
to remove the brackets from the sliders on the 3.

Something like this, that was a drop-in replacement for the
brackets would probably work pretty well.

http://www.plantedtechnology.com/

Enough supporting material and you could drill holes for
the Porsche seat sliders easily enough.

Unfortunately, they don't list the 3 as an available product.
They have the mazdaspeed 3 which makes sense. Of course
they also have the Ford Fiesta, which doesn't.
 
#6 ·
So you can't swap the rails from the MZ3 over to the Porsche seat is what you're saying?


Sent from that one app with the gay annoying signature
 
#7 · (Edited)
Mazda3 and Mazdaspeed3 use the same sliders and brackets. Unfortunately to my knowledge no one makes sliders and brackets for the second gen 3's and MS3, only the first gens. The two gens are compatable as far as the sliders go but the brackets on the first gen don't line up with the four bolt holes (only three line up) on the second gen floor so cutting and welding has to be done to bolt all four corners down. It's an ugly situation right now for people that want to run race seats in their second gens. Some company needs to step up and produce a second gen specific bracket setup for the most popular race seats. Corbo, Sparco, Recaro, Bride ect.

I don't know if this helps with bolting a Porsche seat to Mazda slider but at least you know the the bracket situation isn't a bolt on deal as of yet for aftermarket setups. May never be either. I don't think enough Mazda 3's race for companies to bother with a specic 2010-2113 Mazda3 bracket setup.

So I guess the only way to go right now is to get the oem brackets and sliders to work with the Porsche seats.
 
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#8 ·
That's unfortunate. I presume it's the right rear bracket that folds
under at about a 45 degree angle that is the incompatible one. It's
not like the 2010+ cars are brand new, and I'd expect that there
would be a mod market for them given Mazda's zoom zoom marketing.

Are you listening Planted?

I haven't taken the 3 seat out yet to examine it's sliders, but I presume
that the sliders bolt onto the seat frame and having those seat frame
mounts line up is unlikely and I'd prefer to keep the porsche
seat itself stock and only use some sort of adapter to make it work.

CAD models of both seat assemblies would be really useful here. :)
 
#9 ·
I happen to have a drivers seat out of a 2009 Porsche Cayman laying
around (sometimes one lucks onto salvage stuff) and wonder if it's
possible to swap it into a 2012 Mazda 3? I've spent a fair bit of time
in one of these seats and they are far more comfortable for long drives
than the 3 seat. Are there any off the shelf bracket adapters?
Or might I have to have one custom built if I really wanted to
pursue this mod?
This made me giggle. Yes, I'm sure there is a huge market for people swapping Cayman seats into their Mazda 3. So much of a market they have released brackets you just buy for the swap.

Most certainly this is going to be custom, I'd recommend scoring the cheapest Mazda 3 seat (or seat rails) you can and then have those welded to the frame on the Porsche's.
 
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