Front Driver's Seat Mod?

[zsmithku]

Hey,

I am hoping to get some advise on if what I am asking to mod is even possible. I own a '99 SR5 4WD and love just about everything it has to offer. However, I am 6'4" tall and am about 1 inch away from maxing out the ceiling height. I would like to get about an extra 1 inch between my head and the ceiling if at all possible. So I am wondering if anyone has ever heard of someone mod-ing the front driver's seat by somehow lowering it? I am not sure it's even possible with the stock hardware anyways, especially since I haven't even looked at what the front seat consist of.
Any pros/cons, advice, no's, or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[brian2sun]

I can't imagine doing it with out some cutting/welding.

 

[zsmithku]

I can't imagine doing it with out some cutting/welding.

That doesn't actually bother me. I have the tools to do both. Just wondered if it has actually been done. Not sure if I want to be the Guinea Pig of this type of mod.

 

[quicksilvr]

I actually have both front seats out of my '99 SR5 right now. You could probably get about 3/4" to 1" lower by cutting the legs....BUT. Only 3 of the legs attach to the floor with vertical bolts....one leg attaches to the center "tunnel" with a more horizontal bolt. Not sure how'd you'd get around lowering that one. Anything can be done, but it really might be more pain than it's worth.

I don't think there's any good way of modifying the seat to go on the brackets different...I think the brackets are the only thing you could actually modify

 

[Gumballf355]

As long as you wouldn't mind not having the ability to recline a fixed seat and custom brackets should bring you down 2 inches at the very least.

 

[quicksilvr]

As long as you wouldn't mind not having the ability to recline a fixed seat and custom brackets should bring you down 2 inches at the very least.

Get a sparco racing seat! The Sparco Milano comes in tan leather. It also costs like $1700....so that might put a damper on things.

 

[Jed]

I have a 4th gen, but I made a simple mod to my seat that ended up fixing two things that I didn't like about it.

My modifcation was to build a simple bracket that raised the front seat legs about 1.5 inches higher than normal. This made the front edge of the seat cushion higher, and gave me more thigh support under my legs. Since I'm tall and have long legs, it made my seats MUCH more comfortable than before. The second benefit was that I now had to position my seat back angle back a bit more than before, which ended up increasing my head room too!

So just by fabricating and installing my seat brackets, I ended up with a much more comfortable driving position and a little more head room.

 

[zsmithku]

I have a 4th gen, but I made a simple mod to my seat that ended up fixing two things that I didn't like about it.

My modifcation was to build a simple bracket that raised the front seat legs about 1.5 inches higher than normal. This made the front edge of the seat cushion higher, and gave me more thigh support under my legs. Since I'm tall and have long legs, it made my seats MUCH more comfortable than before. The second benefit was that I now had to position my seat back angle back a bit more than before, which ended up increasing my head room too!

So just by fabricating and installing my seat brackets, I ended up with a much more comfortable driving position and a little more head room.

Do you have any pictures of how you did that?

 

[Jed]

I don't have any pics at the moment, but I can take some if you really want to see. All I did was form an 'S' out of some bar stock and drilled holes in each end to reattach the seat bolts.

I'm not sure if the 3rd gen seats are mounted in the same way as the 4th gen, but the reason I had to use 'S' shaped brackets is because the bolt holes are angled on the 4th gen, so if I raised only the front mounting points, it would not line up properly with a straight spacer.

 

[Fireball]

I haven't had the front seats out yet in the 4R, but the trick mentioned above is pretty common. A few extra washers under the front seat bolts should make a noticeable difference.

Also, in my Miata I was able to access the bottom seat foam cushion and actual remove some of the foam. This allowed me to sit lower in the seat. Not sure if you have leather or cloth seats, but the cloth seats in the Miata the covers could be removed, access the big bottom seat cushion, remove it, hack it up (literally, I used a carving knife and sculpted the bottom to remove about half the padding) and reinstall everything.