Sparco R333 Seats In The Aygo

[Planemo]

Little taster guys. I have been looking around at various aftermarket seats for a while as I found the stock ones woefully inadequate at holding me in place after my Eibach spring and wheel upgrades. The thigh support in particular I felt was non-existent. I was set on OMP Stradas as they are about as cheap as you can go without getting a crap seat but after seeing someone else on the web with Sparco 333's and thinking how awesome they looked I held off and after some searching managed to get myself a pair of pre-owned but unused 333's for £450. Luckily they were also in the black/silver/grey scheme I wanted for my silver Aygo (333's come in 3 other colour options). I had baulked at the additional cost of 2x subframes and 2x sliders @ £220 so decided to make my own adaptor plates and use the stock Aygo sliders which came to a more reasonable £25.

Managed to get the passenger side in today, going to finish the drivers one tomorrow. I will try and take some pics of the setup but I'm terrible for getting pics before finishing stuff.

Heres a quick pic of the passenger one looking funky in it's new home. I will try and put some more up soon:

[Raistlin]

Nice work

[Planemo]

Cheers Raistlin. All in now, I used 50mmx5mm steel flat bar to make up the mounting bars. These bolt to the original runners with the stock nuts. I used 25mmx5mm steel bar to make up right angled brackets for the seat belt buckles. The brackets pick up from the rear inside mounting points for the seats. The brackets take a bit of a while to get right as theres not much space to play with between the edge of the seats and centre console but it's all doable. I mounted the original buckles to the brackets with 10mm bolts and the stock seatbelt warning wires can be retained. Picking up the mounts from the seat bolts means that the buckles move with the seat as per the stock setup.

First off, plenty of measurements! I always try to make mock-up templates as well, much easier to see what the end result will look like than using diagrams!

Next up, cut up the bar, drill the bolts holes and try it out. Thankfully it all worked first time. Excuse the mess!

All done. Everything will be coming back out though so I can spray the metalwork satin black. I also made up some 30mm spacers to raise the seats a bit as they were too low when bolted straight to the bars. I just got some 25mm diameter round black nylon 66 bar then drilled the centres out 9mm. The bar was only £8 and I've still got some left. I used 60mm long shanked hex bolts for the seat mountings which cost £3.

I used fused 2.2ohm resistors in the airbag plugs to stop the error light. These were £4 a pair from eBay. I will try and get a couple more pics of the seat spacers and belt mounting brackets when I get a chance.

The seats definitely hold me in a lot more now and it's much easier to control the steering when theres no forces going through to your hands. Makes driving a much more pleasurable experience when pressing on and I can really push the little Aygo properly now. Amazes me how well the little thing handles, especially in the wet!

[aygo_rory]

Looks good :) I see youve done exactly the same as me with the subframes for the seats!

I took the runners off my stock seats and then bolted black box section across and the cobras bolt straight to that :)

those seats are sexy!

[Planemo]

Cheers Rory

I did consider using box section as it would have served the dual purpose of mounts + height increase but I wanted to use the stock studs that are captive in the stock runners. As you know these studs are only about 15mm long so wouldn't be long enough to pass right through the box and I wasn't sure there would be enough access to the nut had the stud only passed to inside the box. I guess if the box section was large enough it wouldn't be a problem but then I also thought about how I would get the seat bolt access from inside the box section! In the end I thought it would be simpler to just use the flat bar and make up some 30mm nylon bobbins. I used large flat washers either side of the bobbins just to give a robust surface for the seat & runner to sit against. Oddly, although I am 6'1" I felt that the Sparcos mounted directly to the bars were a bit low. I tend to like sitting high and the Aygo roofline isn't exactly lacking!

Out of interest, did your Cobras come with the facility to mount the seat belt stalks directly to them? If my Sparcos did it would have saved me a fair bit of hassle.

Anyways, these are some of the bobbins I made up, along with a couple of washers and the 60mm bolts:

[aygo_rory]

Ill have to take some pictures for you so you can see, the seats do sit a lot lower even on the box section but it is so much more comfortable! everything feels better! my seats are probably about 2 inches lower i would guess.

I also chopped a couple of inches out of the gearstick height and fitted a new aftermarket gear knob and its much nicer to drive! The difference is phenomenal!

I drilled the box section, bolted it to the runners then through the box into the seats, I have a snap on shallow socket set the fits nicely into the box section so mounting was a doddle,

The cobras do have a part on the side that you can bolt the seat belt locks to but i am using sparco harnesses so didn't bother fitting the belt parts