PRE-EDIT: Photobucket is money grabbing now, and the forum software won't just display the pics without you having to click on them. If a mod can get the pics to just display inline with the thread, I'd appreciate it.
I installed a set of Braum Racing seats in my GT500. I bought their S8 series seats. Their most popular and best looking seats are their Elite line, but I saw a couple videos where the person installing them demonstrated how much slack is in the seat back. I definitely did NOT want a shaky seat. According to Braum, their S8 seats are their stiffest reclining seat and come close to their non-reclining race seats in stiffness. Something that would hold me firmly in place is exactly what I was looking for.
I wanted Recaro, but their aftermarket seats are all fairly unattractive to me. Not to mention they're crazy expensive! These Braum S8 seats aren't the greatest looking ones I've seen, but they're not nearly as bad as I feared. They actually look pretty good. They look nice installed in the car.
Speaking of installed... What a PITA to assemble! It wasn't difficult, per se. It was just confusing since the seats come with zero instructions whatsoever. To make a long story short, it was the handle for the sliders that was giving me the biggest headache. The handles are perfectly flat, and when installed, there's not enough space between the handle and the bottom of the seat to activate the locking mechanisms. I thought maybe they sent me the wrong handles since everything I was seeing online showed contoured handles! Even the stock passenger seat has a contoured handle. After figuring out I needed to bend the handles myself (or use spacers on the seat), I finally got them assembled. Because of the confusion and multiple rounds of assembly/disassembly, the first seat took most of an afternoon to assemble. After I figured out the secret handshake, the second seat took maybe 15 - 20 minutes!
Installing them in the car wasn't a big deal, but it still took 2 - 3 hours because you have to take a few parts off the stock seats and transfer them to the new seats. On the passenger seat, you need to remove the passenger detection bladder, the seatbelt latch, and the wiring harness to install on the new seat. Unbolt the seatbelt latch from the stock seat. You will need to also remove one of the nuts from the anchor to be reused on the bolt when attaching the latch to the new seat. Removing the bladder was unbelievably easy. Just lift up the upholstery on the stock seat so you can pop out the two grommets that hold the bladder in place, and slide the bladder right out. Take care not to get its pigtail snagged on the seat springs. Lifting the seat upholstery was super easy, too. Praise Vehiclese that Ford didn't use hog rings in the upholstery! Its attached with plastic hooks. Just unhook it, and there you go! Installing the bladder on the new seat is even easier. Just slide it between the seat springs and the cushion. Again, making sure not to snag its pigtail. Hook up the wiring harness to the seatbelt sensor and passenger detection bladder, tape off the unused connectors with electrical tape, plug it in, and bolt down the seat.
The driver seat is almost as simple. There is no bladder to remove. However, the wiring harness is a lot bigger with a lot of connectors that will go unused on the new seat. I opted to just remove the loom that I needed from the harness. It's just 3 wires that carry over. I had to cut 2 wires because they were routed in a different direction than the ones I needed. The driver seat only needs the seatbelt sensor connector. The passenger seat needs the seatbelt and passenger detection sensor connectors. Again, tape off any unused connectors with electrical tape. In this case, I only needed to tape off the seat position and airbag sensor on the driver side since all the other sensors remained with the wiring harness on the stock seat. I also taped off the connectors left on the stock seats to protect them from corrosion while being stored. After everything's taped off and connected, bolt the seat down and you're done.
I weighed all the seat assemblies. Half surprisingly, there's very little weight to be saved from the stock Shelby front passenger seat; 44 lbs versus 39.5 lbs. The driver seat is where most of the weight savings came. It was hard to balance the seat on my scale, but it weighs ~60 lbs versus 39.5 for the new seat. So ~25 lbs of weight dropped. That and the lightweight engine mounts more than offset the weight the Watts link added. It should definitely be under 3600 lbs now with a full tank of gas!
I haven't driven the car with them in yet, but from initial sitting in them, I can tell they will definitely need to be broken in. The thigh bolsters dig into me in the exact same spots my GT350R's seat used to. So the several hundred miles of driving it are probably going to be agonizing after about an hour long stint. I did learn a new way of getting out of the seats, though. Just slot my thigh right in the notch between the side bolster and thigh bolster and step right out! I've been climbing out of my R all undignified like I'm trying to escape a giant sea clam all this time! I finally learned how to get out of the seat! LOL
And just some gratuitous shots from when I was trying to capture the way the sunlight was reflecting off my car like crazy. The seats weren't in yet. The cell phone wouldn't capture it the way it looked in person. It was incredible.
I installed a set of Braum Racing seats in my GT500. I bought their S8 series seats. Their most popular and best looking seats are their Elite line, but I saw a couple videos where the person installing them demonstrated how much slack is in the seat back. I definitely did NOT want a shaky seat. According to Braum, their S8 seats are their stiffest reclining seat and come close to their non-reclining race seats in stiffness. Something that would hold me firmly in place is exactly what I was looking for.
I wanted Recaro, but their aftermarket seats are all fairly unattractive to me. Not to mention they're crazy expensive! These Braum S8 seats aren't the greatest looking ones I've seen, but they're not nearly as bad as I feared. They actually look pretty good. They look nice installed in the car.
Speaking of installed... What a PITA to assemble! It wasn't difficult, per se. It was just confusing since the seats come with zero instructions whatsoever. To make a long story short, it was the handle for the sliders that was giving me the biggest headache. The handles are perfectly flat, and when installed, there's not enough space between the handle and the bottom of the seat to activate the locking mechanisms. I thought maybe they sent me the wrong handles since everything I was seeing online showed contoured handles! Even the stock passenger seat has a contoured handle. After figuring out I needed to bend the handles myself (or use spacers on the seat), I finally got them assembled. Because of the confusion and multiple rounds of assembly/disassembly, the first seat took most of an afternoon to assemble. After I figured out the secret handshake, the second seat took maybe 15 - 20 minutes!
Installing them in the car wasn't a big deal, but it still took 2 - 3 hours because you have to take a few parts off the stock seats and transfer them to the new seats. On the passenger seat, you need to remove the passenger detection bladder, the seatbelt latch, and the wiring harness to install on the new seat. Unbolt the seatbelt latch from the stock seat. You will need to also remove one of the nuts from the anchor to be reused on the bolt when attaching the latch to the new seat. Removing the bladder was unbelievably easy. Just lift up the upholstery on the stock seat so you can pop out the two grommets that hold the bladder in place, and slide the bladder right out. Take care not to get its pigtail snagged on the seat springs. Lifting the seat upholstery was super easy, too. Praise Vehiclese that Ford didn't use hog rings in the upholstery! Its attached with plastic hooks. Just unhook it, and there you go! Installing the bladder on the new seat is even easier. Just slide it between the seat springs and the cushion. Again, making sure not to snag its pigtail. Hook up the wiring harness to the seatbelt sensor and passenger detection bladder, tape off the unused connectors with electrical tape, plug it in, and bolt down the seat.
The driver seat is almost as simple. There is no bladder to remove. However, the wiring harness is a lot bigger with a lot of connectors that will go unused on the new seat. I opted to just remove the loom that I needed from the harness. It's just 3 wires that carry over. I had to cut 2 wires because they were routed in a different direction than the ones I needed. The driver seat only needs the seatbelt sensor connector. The passenger seat needs the seatbelt and passenger detection sensor connectors. Again, tape off any unused connectors with electrical tape. In this case, I only needed to tape off the seat position and airbag sensor on the driver side since all the other sensors remained with the wiring harness on the stock seat. I also taped off the connectors left on the stock seats to protect them from corrosion while being stored. After everything's taped off and connected, bolt the seat down and you're done.
I weighed all the seat assemblies. Half surprisingly, there's very little weight to be saved from the stock Shelby front passenger seat; 44 lbs versus 39.5 lbs. The driver seat is where most of the weight savings came. It was hard to balance the seat on my scale, but it weighs ~60 lbs versus 39.5 for the new seat. So ~25 lbs of weight dropped. That and the lightweight engine mounts more than offset the weight the Watts link added. It should definitely be under 3600 lbs now with a full tank of gas!
I haven't driven the car with them in yet, but from initial sitting in them, I can tell they will definitely need to be broken in. The thigh bolsters dig into me in the exact same spots my GT350R's seat used to. So the several hundred miles of driving it are probably going to be agonizing after about an hour long stint. I did learn a new way of getting out of the seats, though. Just slot my thigh right in the notch between the side bolster and thigh bolster and step right out! I've been climbing out of my R all undignified like I'm trying to escape a giant sea clam all this time! I finally learned how to get out of the seat! LOL
And just some gratuitous shots from when I was trying to capture the way the sunlight was reflecting off my car like crazy. The seats weren't in yet. The cell phone wouldn't capture it the way it looked in person. It was incredible.
