Here's the how to for mounting the Solstice seats.
It's really not a big deal and if you like this style of seat, you're not going to find any leather seats cheaper than these. I will warn you that when done, you sit about 1" higher than stock. If you want, you can use Archies method to lower the seats a bit that he uses in the chop tops, but we left them alone.
First, you want to remove the tracks from your Fiero seats. There are two bolts that require a 13mm socket on each track that secure them to the seat base.
You then have to take off the seat tracks from the Solstice as they won't work. The come off with two bolts on each track, on the side of the seat base and you have to disconnect the wire that goes to the seat belt latch that operates the warning buzzer.
Once that is off, if you measure carefully, you'll notice that the center to center on the Fiero track mounting holes is just to the area that you will be right on the edge of the Solstice base so you need to make some adapter straps to go across the Solstice bases. We used 1/4" X 1.5" strap and you need about 15 " per strap, so 5 feet should about do it. By using the 1.5" wide strap, you will be able to drill two sets of holes on each side, one set to mount to the Seat bases, the other to mount to the Fiero Tracks. Mounted on the seats, this is what you have.
You can see how the holes are staggered slightly. Mount the rear adapter plate as far back as you can go with it and then, using the dimensions from the Fiero seat tracks, mount the front ones so the bolt holes will line up. We used 5/16" grade 5 bolts to mount the straps to the seats and the tracks to the straps.
John Stricker
[This message has been edited by jstricker (edited 02-13-2006).]
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08:41 PM
PFF
System Bot
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
Once the tracks are mounted to the base, give them a test fit in the car to make sure you didn't hose up a measurement.
Mounted in place on the passenger side.
Plenty of clearance behind the seat back and firewall area
One of the bugaboos in other seats is parking brake handle clearance and thankfully, there is plenty with the Solstice Seats.
If you're sticking with the Fiero belts then that's all there is (although we have them back out and apart to paint the tracks and base plates). If you're using the Solstice belts you'll find that they will NOT buckle into the Fiero latches. The Solstice buckles mount to the original seat tracks, which we no longer have, and they are shorter than the Fiero buckles so we had to lengthen them 3" and bend them to match the Fiero latches. When finished, we covered the welded area with Heat Shrink to give it a finished look pretty much like factory.
We lengthened them with a 3" piece of 1" strap that is heavier than the factory mounts on the Fiero or the Solstice and then covered the lengthened area with 1" heat shrink tube.
That's pretty much all there is to it. I thought about putting down dimensions, etc., but to be honest, it's pretty straightforward if you just do one seat at a time and measure off the old Fiero seats.
The seats are tall, as you can see in the picture. I don't know what clearance issues you'd have in a stock Fiero. I'm certain you'd have issues with a chop top car. I gave $450 for the seat and belts from a salvage yard. They're not fancy, no power adjust, no electric heat, but that was really what I wanted if I couldn't have everything in them so they'll work out pretty well. They are built MUCH heavier than the Fiero seats as far as the metal used in the base and how it's constructed.
John Stricker
Edited both posts to fix some images
[This message has been edited by jstricker (edited 02-13-2006).]
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08:43 PM
JCW Member
Posts: 80 From: Galax, Virginia, USA Registered: Oct 2002
Great work... An GM engineer buddy of mine had a prototype Solstice seat in his living room a few months back. That seat was soooo comfortable. I am glad you were able to make it work!
They're available. Look them up on Car-Part.Com. Last time I looked there were about a dozen sets on there and most of them around $400, just like what I paid for them.
They are REALLY comfortable, although if this car weren't a roadster I'd most likely drop the seats with Archies method of lowering them. The choice of colors in the Solstice is limited, though, but I wanted Black anyway so that wasn't a problem for me. And the price for all new seats is about 60% of a set of Mr. Mike's seat covers. If I could find a set in tan to match the rest of the Finale interior, I might be temped to swap them out.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by JCW:
Great work... An GM engineer buddy of mine had a prototype Solstice seat in his living room a few months back. That seat was soooo comfortable. I am glad you were able to make it work!
I would have used counter sunk hex head bolts to attach the adapter plates to the new seat. It looks like the Fiero rails are crooked because of your bolt choice. You can see how I did my aftermarket seat installation here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20031110-2-036615.html the countersunk bolts are in the last set of pictures and sit flush with the adapter plate. I also went in a different direction than you did. Either way will work.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 02-14-2006).]
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10:30 AM
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
They're crooked because they aren't tight in the picture. You can see Mike just starting the nut on the one bolt. There are fender washers beneath the track and above the rail which are as wide as the tracks so when they're tight, they're straight. Countersund would work and give you another 1/4" if height is a problem and in fact, we had planned to use them when the seats go back together after painting the tracks.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by avengador1:
I would have used counter sunk hex head bolts to attach the adapter plates to the new seat. It looks like the Fiero rails are crooked because of your bolt choice. You can see how I did my aftermarket seat installation here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20031110-2-036615.html the countersunk bolts are in the last set of pictures and sit flush with the adapter plate. I also went in a different direction than you did. Either way will work.
I am curious to know, after you fixed your brackets, how much higher is your head than in the stock seats. I only ask because I am about 6' 2" and I know I'm pretty close up top already.
I am curious to know, after you fixed your brackets, how much higher is your head than in the stock seats. I only ask because I am about 6' 2" and I know I'm pretty close up top already.
Thanks
Sounds like 1" according to the first post-
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04:09 PM
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
In brief, what Archie does to lower the seats is flattens out the brackets where they mount at the front and cuts out the rear mounting area so the brackets can mount to the floor pan instead of the support. How much higher is it? I really don't know, but it's higher. The reason I don't know is these are for the Roadster so I have no roof to compare seating height with, before and after.
I'm a little surprised the pictures work. My ISP sold out to another one and the DNS servers have been funky with his old domain. If they go to little red x boxes, I'll correct them, but it might be awhile as I've decided to register my own domain and purchased some server space separately so that will take a bit of time to get set up. Then I have to go back and change all the links.
John Stricker
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04:16 PM
May 4th, 2006
bryson Member
Posts: 737 From: Mt. Pleasant, SC, USA Registered: Sep 2002
Looks good -- very nice looking seat, very subtle. I know you said that they seem to be built "heavier" than stock Fiero seats. Did you happen to weigh them?
I am curious to know, after you fixed your brackets, how much higher is your head than in the stock seats. I only ask because I am about 6' 2" and I know I'm pretty close up top already.
I put in Solstice seats, and it took many hours to get the right height. I cut off about 1-2 inches of the solstice seat from the bottom. I first tried using the Fiero seat brackets, but IMO these make the seat about 3-4 inches too high. In the end, I mounted the seats directly to the floor. They are non adjustable. I am 6-1 and my head almost hits the roof. With a helmet on, I'm bumping around in the sunroof opening. I think the seats are very close to the stock height- with the bottom cut off and mounted directly on the floor. I don't see how you get get slide brackets under the solstice seats without the seat being too high (for a tall person).
I forgot to weigh mine, but I think they are heavier.
Either way will work.
