How to: BRZ Seats in the Fiesta

[zanethan]

Some of you might remember that a few months ago I set out to swap base FiST seats for BRZ seats. Well I succeeded in chopping up the Fiesta rails and got it to work. After a few weeks I reverted back. The seating position just wasn't right. It felt more like I was sitting on the can not in the car. Well I decided to try my other idea of using the planted brackets and BRZ rails and I'm happy to report that it was a huge success. If you're going to do this this is the route to go.

***Disclaimer- Do this at your own risk. You will be swapping out safety equipment and bypassing airbags. I'm not responsible for any injuries resulting from this swap.

Legalities out of the way here's what you're going to need:
-1 pair of BRZ seats with the rails.
-1 pair of Planted Technology brackets.
-8 grade 8 bolts (5/16-8 thread 1 inch long)
-8 grade 8 lock washers (5/16)
-8 grade 8 nuts (5/16-8 thread)
-10 grade 8 washers (5/16)
-12mm socket
-1/2 inch socket
-T-50 star socket
-Driver and extensions
-12mm box wrench
-1/2 inch box wrench
-5/16" drill bit
-Drill press or drill
-Vice grips
-Various screw drivers
-Wire cutters

Step 1: Tear down the BRZ seats

I didn't get any good photos of this but the process it pretty straight forward. Start by taking off the seat wiring harness and seatbelt buckles. After that, remove the reclining handle. This is done by prying on the interior plastic tab and sliding it off, from there remove all the pieces of plastic trim.

After removing the plastic trim,the bottom cushion needs to be removed. Again pretty straight forward. There are clips on the back, side and front. There is also a clip on each side near the hinge. Once the clips are off, the cushion lifts out.

Step 2: Removing the rails

Technically a subset of step one, but I'm breaking in out. The rails are held on by 6-12mm nuts on the passenger seat and 7 on the drivers side. You'll need to use a combination of the socket and box wrenches to get these off. The drivers side has a bracket for the seatbelt buckle, make sure to save this.

Step 3: Removing the Feet

This is where having a drill press will come in handy. It's possible to do it without but it'll be much more difficult. The feet are riveted on with 2 rivets per foot. You will need to remove both the front and rear feet. This is arguably the hardest part. It's a huge pain but keep at it. You also need to make sure to get the rivets completely out of the rails so that you have the holes. These will be the holes we use to attach the rails to the brackets.

Step 4: Take a break

Crack open a beer and take a load off. The hardest part is now behind you.

Step 5: Modifying the Rails.

There are a few things you'll need to modify to make them work. The first is the tabs for the slide stops.

There is a set of these front on each rail. They need to be bent up slightly using the vice grips. This is so they can clear the bolts after installation.

The other modification is to the rear plastic caps.

You need to cut off the part after the tabs and then widen the arch slightly using some scissors or wire cutters. After modifying reinstall on the rails.

Step 6: Reattaching the rails.

After modifying the rails re-attach them to the seat bases. Make sure to include reinstall the seatbelt bracket on the drivers seat.

Step 7: Test fitting the rails.

Start by bolting up the front of the rails to the Planted Bracket. Ultimately the world is your oyster on this but if you want the most similar seat placement as stock you're going to want to bolt through the 2nd hole on the rails and the 2nd Planted hole.

From there you'll need to drill 2 holes in the bracket. Use masking tape and mark where you need to drill the back holes.

After marking, drill the holes. Note that it will not be a full "hole" but rather will connect with the existing slot on the Planted bracket to make a sort of "L" shaped hole.

After drilling, make sure that all bolts can go through the bracket and be bolted. Also make sure that the rails have the full range of motion that they should.

Step 8: Removing Fiesta Seats.

Remove the Fiesta seats. They're held on by 4-T50 star bolts. Make sure to disconnect the wiring harness before removal.

After removing the seats remove the wiring harness. For the passenger seat you'll also need to remove the occupancy sensor. The best way to do this is to unclip the cushion on the front and shimmy it out of there.

Step 9: Reconstruct the BRZ seat/Transfer the Fiesta stuff over.

At this point you're going to put the BRZ seats back together. Make sure you move the occupancy sensor over the the passenger seat.

Move over the wiring harness to the BRZ seat.

For the seatbelt buckle you're going to remove the Torx bolt from the buckle and reinstall using the BRZ nut.

Now is also when you're going to want to put in the resistors to fool the computer for the airbags.

Step 10: Installing the Seats.

You're almost there! The order of operations on this step is VERY important. If you don't do it in the correct order you will not be able to bolt in the seats.

First, loosely bolt the seat to the bracket on the front ONLY. Assemble the bolt like it will be the final assembly as it will be. You should have a washer on top and then a washer, lock washer, and bolt on bottom. Once, loosely assembled you can take the assembly to the car.

Second, place the assembly into the car. (Again at this point the bracket should only be held on by the 2 front bolts). Once in the car start the front torx bolts on the bracket but only start them.

Third, move the seat all the way up and go to the back. In the rear you're going to lift the seat and bolt in the bracket with the torx bolts. You will fight with the seat a bit but you will be able to tighten down the rear bolts.

Forth, attached the rear seat rails to the bracket. You will have enough room to start and assemble the rail bolts to the bracket. For the rear I doubled up on the washers under the rail as the hole was a bit bigger on the bracket. Go ahead and tighten the rear bolts all the way.

Fifth, not that the rear is done slide the seat all the way back. Now you can tighten the front bolts down that you started before placing in the car. (You did start those like I said right?!?!).

Step 11: Plug in the seats.

Step 12: Go enjoy!!

All in total cost comes to roughly $800. ($500 for the seats, $240 for the brackets, and $50 for hardware). There are some that claim they can find Focus Recaro's for this price but I certainly haven't been able to and I've scoured the internet.

From a comfort standpoint these seem like a good compromise between the base and Recaro's. Not as bolstered but more comfortable in my opinion.

 

[LargeRubberFist]

Do you think these are any lower than the stock seats or about the same?

 

[zanethan]

They end up being a little bit lower, maybe 1/4". You are able to raise up the drivers though.

 

[Fiestaboy559]

[emoji1303][emoji1303][emoji1303]

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[jay_red]

Awesome write up, this is exactly how I was going to do it, and I was about to start buying the parts, but then I found s pair of FosT recaros kind of local for $750. I swapped the base over like in the other write up on the site and have been happy ever since. The BRZ seats still look great and had the Recaro deal not worked out I would be putting those in for sure.

 

[zanethan]

Thanks! Good find on those FoST seats! Can't fault you for going that route. I would have too for that price point but I can't find them for a reasonable price.

 

[CorsaGT]

I just completed this install on my '17 FiST this weekend, and wanted to add a few comments from my experience.

First off, a huge thanks to zanethan for posting this up. In the end, I referenced your post less than I'd anticipated, but simply knowing that:

1) The BRZ seats fit in the FiST,
2) The BRZ seats can be fitted to the Planted brackets,
3) Which mounting holes to use,
4) The occupancy sensor is easily removed from the Ford seat,
5) The seatbelt clip transfers over nicely,
6) The feet should be ground off before installing

...made the process much far less stressful and greatly reduced the time required.

A few additional things I'd like to add:

1) Both the BRZ and FiST seat airbags are 2.1 ohms. I was prepared to either wire in another resistor to the harness in order to keep the airbags functional, but it was as simple as rewiring the Ford airbag connector onto the BRZ airbag.

2) There's a magnetic position sensor on the Ford seats. These sensors are triggered by the large steel tabs on the bottom of the Ford seat bracket when the seats are slid all the way forward. This changes the timing in the forward facing airbags, igniting the airbags sooner when passengers are seated very close to the dash. Again, I wanted to keep these functional, so I fabricated a simple bracket on the BRZ seats so that these sensors would be covered by a section of the Planted bracket when he seats were all the way forward.

Here's a photo of the tab on the Ford seat that will engage the sensor:



3) The seat heaters in the fancy BRZ seats can be wired up to the rear 12V power plug in the center console. I confirmed that, although it does turn off after considerable time after turning off the ignition, it does turn back on as soon as the door is unlocked. Should still be good enough for not killing the battery in case the heater is accidentally left on. The BRZ heaters were each wired to their own dedicated 10A circuit in the Subaru, but the rear power plug on the Ford is a 20A circuit, so I'm not worried about sharing the circuit for both heaters. I'm reasonably certain that the front power plug (just behind the shifter) is not switched by the BCM/ignition and is always hot. The was also confirmed with the wiring diagrams. I haven't done this part of the install yet, but probably will when it gets cold out.

4) I didn't have to remove the cushions fully to get to the nuts holding the sliders to the brackets. Raise the driver's seat all the way up before removing the plastics - it makes the slider nuts much easier to access. Also, budget for some additional M8 x 1.25 nuts as you'll likely damage some of the stock ones when removing the rails. My seats were a little older, so YMMV. It felt like there was some thread locker holding them on, but I couldn't see any on the bolts.

5) I purchased an angle grinder for this project specifically (and wondered why I hadn't bought one a decade ago). If you don't have a drill press, an angle grinder, hammer, and punch make removing the big feet almost easy. Really no big deal. I removed the first one with a drill and knew that wasn't going to be the solution. I quickly sprayed the exposed steel with some black paint

6) You can trim the plastic on the passenger side's seat belt clip cover to clear the Planted bracket when sliding the seat forward and backward. It interferes slightly otherwise.

7) I wasn't really happy with the recommend procedure for torquing the large Torx bolts holding the seat to the floor. It just seemed like a pain, especially if you'd like to remove the seats in the future. I'll probably replace the rear Torx bolts with high grade hex bolts instead.

I hope more FiST owners do this swap. I found the Recaros to be too aggressive, and the BRZ seats to be a great alternative. They remind me of S2000 seats, but with a bit more support.

Here's my finished install:

 

[Dpro]

The question is do they sit at the same height of the Recaro or lower?

 

[CorsaGT]

The question is do they sit at the same height of the Recaro or lower?

zanethan addressed this a year ago. They sit lower. The passenger side is certainly lower. The driver's side is height adjustable and can be raised significantly. I sit at the same height before and after the install. I'm 6'4" and wouldn't drive with them as low as they could go.

If there are any measurements that would be helpful in comparing the two, let me know.

 

[zanethan]

Nicely done! I like the leather ones better than the cloth also a good suggestion for switching out the rear bolts to hex bolts. That never even crossed my mind while figuring all this out haha.