Lotus seats in 987

Hey all. Just finished part one of my next interior upgrade on my turbo 987s. After the turbo upgrade I realised I needed better seats time hold me for the spirited driving I enjoy. After doing a ton of research and looking at pretty much every after market seat I could get my butt in I was no closer to a decision. I had a few requirements 1) had to be usable with stock belts 2) had to put me lower in the car (I’m 6’2”, my head would almost touch the headliner with the roof up) and you could forget a broomstick test with a helmet 3) couldn’t make it hard to get in and out 4) had to be lightweight which pretty much meant fixed seats after a lot of searching I came across the corbeau England LE seats on a Miata forum. So I looked into them andfell in love with them. So I was working on having a set imported when the covid thing hit so that was put on hold. While sitting around one day I found a set of lotus Elise seats for sale locally for a stupid cheap price. They are basically identical and the LE is intended to be mounted in an Elise. So I went and looked at them and they fit me perfect. Then came the hard part fitting them. What I ended up with was a set of brackets from flipside customs and adapted those to a set of corbeau sliders. Took a bit of doing but super happy with the results! I’m working with rob from flipside now to make a set of mounts to put the lotus Elise/corbeau le seats into any car with corbeau sliders. The new setup has me prob 3” lower than I was with the old setup and is much more comfortable and sporty than the oe seats step two is going to be to redo the center section for a little more padding (they are worn out) and to better match the rest of the interior work I’ve done

Nice work! That's a very clever solution. Did you take any photos during the process, and if so would you mind sharing them along with any installation tips that you discovered "the hard way"? Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

The two hardest pa I didn’t take too many photos but I have a few I’ll post below. I’ll also say if your under 5’10” you will probibly have to space the rails off the base a bit. Im 6’2” and I can see fine but my dad is 5’10” and says he can see but if he was any shorter it wouldn’t be easy to drive. Adding the spacer would be easy to do and I almost did it but decided I like being that low for the moment lol. I will say other company bases will fit and some are higher. I wanted the lowest I could find. The spacing of the holes on the rail is important thing. They must match corbeau seats. As far as pitfalls. 1) airbags. DO NOT UNPLUG AIRBAGS WITH THE BATTERY CONNECTED You need to fool the system. I used a 3.3 ohm resistor and it worked perfectly, got it from a place that sells Subaru parts. All I had to do was shave the prongs down a little to fit in the Porsche plug I’ll post a photo of the wiring diagram on a 987 cuz that was a pain to find. 2) modifying the brackets were the single hardest part cuz I had to figure out the best way to do it. Hopefully Flipside comes up with a solution. I’ll post photos below of what mine look like. The rears are modified flipside brackets. The front use box steel (.188 wall) split in half and cut to size. All hardware is gr 8 or better. But I would wait for him to make a set. 3) pulling the original seatbelt receiver is pretty easy to do but it’s easy to damage the plug so go slow. The nut on both of mine was tough to get started 4) when pulling the old seats just spring for the e12 external torx bit. It’s not worth fighting with a 10mm socket. Also if you have power seats leave the battery connected till you unbolt the seat. Then pull the battery and wait 30 minutes before unplugging and pulling the seat. It’s easy to unbolt with the seat all the way up (and moving forward and back). And the put it all the way down to make it easier to actually take out of the car. That drivers seat is heavy. Get a friend. Lol 5) I had to over drill the holes in the corbeau rail to let it line up with the holes in the car. Went out to 1/2” on that it was very close and I could have forced it but I didn’t want any sheer force on the bolts. Use a step drill. Much easier. that’s about it. It wasn’t actually that hard once I did my research on what was available that I could just modify. I did try making brackets from scratch. It was a pain and I pulled the plug on that quickly. Front mount (the bar across the top is 3/16 plate, and the bottom is a 1/8” hardened spacer to adjust the angle) Rear mount. Flipside bracket spaced out an additional 1/8” from what his setup has so that the bottom fits to the outside of the rails. Adaptor is 3/16 plate spaced 1/8” from flipside bracket Wiring diagram for the seat plug shockingly hard to find First seat in amazing how much room there is around the seat now

wow interesting mod.... those seats do look racy. How are they comfort wise? is the angle adjustable at all?

For me and the handful of people I’ve had try them out, super comfortable even with the foam completely trashed. The shell is very well shaped and contoured and has inflatable lumbar support. I put about 120miles on the car yesterday in two legs (one over 80 miles, one a little over 40). Drove to the marina then drove around (beautiful day in Nj) with no back pain on numbness. I feel they are more comfortable than the stock seats, and these will only get better when I reupholster them. Angle is “adjustable” in the sense that you can add or subtract spacers to the front and rear to adjust. But no there isn’t any “quick” adjustment. I took a few days sitting in the seats and adding and subtracting spacers infront of the tv until it was comfortable. And sitting with the headrest basically perpendicular to the ground.

Thanks for sharing.[emoji106][emoji106] Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

No problem hope I inspire others to take that step!

Hats off to you sir! What an idea. I actually own a 2006 Boxster S and a 2007 Lotus Exige. They are like my children. I love them equally but for different reasons. I cannot imagine using the Lotus seats in the Porsche . I really like the Porsche seats. They do the Goldilocks thing for me. Just right. My wife won't even go near the Exige but loves the Boxster seats. I think they fit the car, sporty but also luxurious. The Lotus seats are amazingly comfortable considering how little there is to them. But they are the ultimate in minimalism, just like the car. You do realize that if you keep going down this slope, you will eventually end up with an Elise, right?

Thank you! Lol the thought had crossed my mind but I don’t know if I fit in an exige. Part of the reason I did the swap is I’m 6’2. I don’t fit in a boxster well lol. With these seats I have room to spare. This weekend they are getting reupholstered and padded. I’m using a combination of 1/4 and 1/2” Eva and 1/2” upholstery foam and then blue alcantara. Also gonna redo the anthracite alcantara I did on the instument, center stack sides, the strip down the dash and below the shifter and the roll bar pads in the blue as well. Should look sharp