Modern Seats

One of the problems with the old Porsches is their seats. We knew from the beginning that the factory seats would have to be replaced with newer ones. The old ones were too soft, too low and there is no head restraint.

At the first concours we visited after buying the car we talked to an owner who had changed his seats to those from a 944 using adapter rails to accommodate the narrower track. That was the key idea. We purchased used 944 seats at the PartsHeaven swap meet for $400.

911 seats also would have worked.

You can get the adapter plates from Strasse or Automotion. They are made by Weltmeister. Or they could be fabricated easily. The over-all dimensions of each of the bars are 17.25 in. x 2.375 in. x 0.250 in. The bars look like aircraft hardness black anodized aluminum. Steel plates would work just as well. There are 6 holes. Four on the outside that match the position of the end pair of holes mounting the old seat rails. These are slotted, but careful measurements should make that unnecessary. Of course, the inner 2 holes ones match the end holes on the rails for the new seats. The distance between the two row of holes can be calculated by measuring the center to center distance of the new seat rails and the old ones. Half the difference should be the distance between the two rows on the bars, right? You can see the detail by clicking the second thumbnail picture below.

This is a major improvement in seating comfort and is highly recommended for daily drivers.

We still have the old seats which should be used if the car is ever prepared as a show car.

The seats required some adjustment to slide back and forth as easily as they should. This was a combination of the dirt and old lubrication in the tracks and the alignment of the rails in the car. They should be installed with the rails parallel so there is no side loading on the tracks as the seat moves from front to back.

These 944 seats are nearly 20 years newer than the car. They've learned a lot about comfort in that period. The tracks are narrower on newer seats. This problem is solved with heavy aluminum spacers plates to bridge the gap.

Does your seat adjust in height? Mine does - with a wrench.

This picture shows a modification for the altitude impaired. We found some square steel tubing at the hardware store ($9 for 48 in.) that was put under the seat rails to raise the drivers seat by an inch. The tubing was cut into two 14 in. pieces and two holes drilled 11 3/4 in. apart to match the existing mounting holes. We used some 2 in. bolts to mount the whole assembly to the the seat. If you want to do the same with the stock seats, the only problem would be getting proper length longer metric cap screws. Since the seat rails on the 944 seats in our car are narrower than stock, the tubing was put between the seat rails and the adapter mounting plates as shown in the picture.

Last modified: Sat, 10 Jun 2000

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