RSX seats...has anybody swapped them into a Protege?

[AG DesignWorks]

Just curious if anyone has done this swap. The RSX seats look really sporty and have big bolsters. I love my leather interior, but the Protege seats were not really designed to hold you in place during cornering.

Any seat swapping info would be helpful too...brackets, how things line up, etc.

 

[dwryter]

Re: RSX Seats

The seats on my 2002 P5 were one of the car's selling points. They're very well bolstered and still more comfortable after 10 years than those of any other car I've been in lately. If yours are not, maybe the leather seats aren't as good as the standard fabric ones. If that's the case, you might want to look for good-condition original fabric P5 seats instead of trying to get seats from a different car to fit.

 

[SASK P5]

p5 seats are very poor at holding you during cornering. they don't have much for side or thigh bolsters. those rsx seats look much better and would probably be a great upgrade. Id say do whatever you can to get them in, unfortunately i can't be any help with tips to actually getting them in. good luck

 

[AG DesignWorks]

Thanks for the input. But I think the leather seats look far far better than the standard cloth versions. In fact, leather was one of the features i sought out when hunting for my P5 last year (stickshift, leather and sunroof was my wishlist). IMO, the pattern on the cloth is really unfortunate and the grey material looks chintzy. Not really bad, just kinda cheezy. If there was a black alcantara-like surface available, i might go with that instead of leather, because it looks nice and is grippier than leather.

I ask because i found a set on craigslist locally, and from reading the other import forums, they're praised as being well made, comfortable, and a sportier fit to your body. The P5 seats just seem very 'bench-like', comfy to sit on, but they don't really hold you in place.

I'm going to do my research on the RSX seats and see how closely the bolts line up to the protege seats. if anybody has a photo of the underside of our seats and could provide measurements (ie how far apart the four mounting points are from one another,) that would really help.

 

[MazdaSpeeder]

Several guys have installed Mz3 and MS3 seats, but custom seats are a custom install. There's no compatibility...you have to install a whole new set of rails in the car or a whole new set of rails on the seats. If you poke around (maybe in the how-to section) you should find some info from others doing swaps similar to yours.

 

[AG DesignWorks]

yeah, i'm just looking for info before i go plunk down a few hundred dollars on the seats. I'm certain there will be some custom work that has to be done, i just want to figure out how much. If the rails from the P5 seats can be retrofitted to the RSX seats then it might not be too difficult. Or if some brackets need to be made to fit the RSX rails and seats to the P5 mount holes.

I'm expecting some work, i'm just hoping that both being compact imports it might not be too bad.

 

[HKPRO5]

Sub for interest.

 

[AG DesignWorks]

I messaged another member here who's parting out his P5. In his photos i can see the seats are out of the car, so i've asked him to measure the mounting holes on the rails. I hope he comes through for me, I tried to measure the mouting points in the car, but they're covered with plastic.

I'll ask here too...If anybody else has a set of Protege, P5 or MSP seats in there garage, can you post these measurements?

 

[iamthewheelman]

The plastic you are talking about pops off easily, I am no interior specialist but could you not just make a bracket that will attach to the RSX seat and have mounting points for the p5 rail?

 

[paper1122]

OP, car seats are very easy to remove, just go ahead and pop the 4 bolts to get your measurements. Depending on how crazy I've wanted to get cleaning I've removed a seat for better access.
In any case, if you have access to some fabrication tools you can make some adapter plates easily. If you want a seat that has very good side bolstering find some S2000 seats. I can tell you they are very comfortable but very supportive.

 

[jtlinna]

Been down this road.. Depending on the type of rails on the RSX seats you may be able to swap the mounting tabs like i did. But if the RSX seats are not the same width thats were doing a swap make things a pain. I kept the measurements for #2 in your pic the same as the stock seat. #4 started the same but i had to turn both tabs out to the side to make up for the narrower Evo 8 seat.. #1 and #3 are now whatever they ended up being..

One thing you could try is to get a set of P5 adapter rails for some Recaro seats and try and make them work.. Thats what i was thinking about doing..


JT

 

[AG DesignWorks]

Seats are home and they look great. I'm going to start work on them tomorrow. Also, my buddy has a line on a guy with his own machine shop, so i may be able to get some professional help that way. Either way, i'm so excited, these seats look and feel amazing. P5 seats feel like a park bench by comparision.

 

[bikingpro5]

there is a guy in Canada who has the rsx seats in his protege5 and they look and fit the car great.



http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123781143-FS-All-my-Protege-5-Protege-parts
http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?105396-Project-Protege-2-A-Mod-Diary

What we did:
I wanted this to go as easy as possible so I opted to have the brackets cut off my old seat rails for use. We cut the pins and weld from the stock brackets to the protege rails, and did the same to the RSX rails. Next came a matter of tacking the rar console side bracket to the rail for a starting point. The seats wer then placed in the car, and vice grips were used to lock each of the other brackets firmly in their final resting place. They were tacked on, and the vices removed, at which point we went on an all out welder bender to ensure safety and solidity of the bracket/rail cross. The seat belt bolts came right out of the protege seat side and were and exact match into the RSX bolt hole. Seats were bolted down and they were pressure tested just to be safe. (we shook the fack out of them) All in all a good days welding, done by the awesome guys at Double Z Automotive here in NS.

 

[iamthewheelman]

Guess welding was a pretty obvious solution as well lol shoulda thought of that

 

[AG DesignWorks]

I've spoken to the guy my friend recommended. He's got experience with seat swapping in a Protege, and the way he described it, he's going to modify the RSX rails to fit the P5, which makes me happy because i'll be able to keep the P5 seats original. That means if i ever go to sell the car, i can return the car to stock so the dealer won't freak out about non-OE equipment.

Hopefully will get this all done this week, i can't wait to get them in the car!

 

[iamthewheelman]

Post pics, I am very curious, they look comfortable lol

 

[AG DesignWorks]

Dropped the car and seats off this morning with a metal fabricator. Should be ready for me to pick up tomorrow afternoon. He said he would be able to remove the factory seats and modify the RSX seats to work in the p5, which means if I go to sell the car, I can pull the RSX seats and put it back to stock so a dealer doesn't freak out about non-OE seats.

I'll post pics when I get the car back and try to get a rundown of what he did.

 

[HKPRO5]

Nice!

 

[effa114]

Wow I hope all goes well for you. The RSX seats are some of my very favourites. I'm relatively happy with my (cloth) p5 seats, but the bolstering could be so much better. The RSX seats are gorgeous and make me wish I'd gone for the leather interior... much easier to match other leathers than cloth patterns.

Best of luck, and looking forward to pics!

Cheers,
Ben

 

[AG DesignWorks]

BAM!

Got the car back on Saturday from my fabricator. he made some really heavy duty brackets out of steel, modified the RSX mounting brackets, and welded his new mounting brackets to the existing RSX seat rails. They feel fantastic and look awesome.

My fabricator is going to send me a bunch of progress photos he took while he was working, and i'll post them up when he sends them. All that's left to do is figure out how to kill the airbag light that's now flashing on my dash. I didn't realize this before, but my OE seats actually have side airbags. We need a way to fool the connector under each of the seats into thinking that airbag module is still hooked up to get the airbag light to go off.