My Rear Seat Delete & Interior Modifications

[PM-R33]

I have had my car for about 5 years now from stock standard and one area I never really did much on was the interior.

It was an area of the car I could never really decide on what I wanted and I never had the money to do a full retrim or something similar. I didn't want something to out there but at the same time wanted to retain some comfort/luxury but still with a bit of a track/sports feel. I looked towards what a lot of Euro sports cars were doing and wanted to style it on something along those lines.

My interior has pretty much remained the same since the HPI photo shoot and consisted of some white Blitz gauges in a Greddy pillar to go along with the white faced 300km/h speedo, a Greddy Profec boost controller and turbo timer in a custom enclosure of where the ash tray went and a Nismo leather gear knob with a custom leather gear boot.

As you can see I wanted to keep it as neat looking while looking semi factory. I didn't really want gauges all over the dash with wires running everywhere and a stripped interior like some cars have. While I don't mind the look of it, for a street driven car it would annoy me.

So about a month ago after my girlfriend mentioned I spend so much money on parts of the car I can't see when I'm sitting inside of it, I decide the grandpa-spec interior was due for a change.

The first obvious thing that needed to be done was the seats. I have thought about this so many times and finally bit the bullet on my choice. I loved the look and feal of R34 GTR seats but they had to be black. Knowing what black ones go for there was no way in hell I was paying that much for second hand seats. So I ended up getting some new East Bear Sigma R34 GTR seats for a good price with bolt in rails and put them in.

They looked fantastic and hugged really well (also saved around 6-7kg over the stock seats) however the factory back seat pissed me off a lot. It just looked to strange with the contrasting of colours and I needed to do something about it. The problem was I hardly ever have back seat passengers and the car isn't a daily any more so to spend a few hundred dollars on a retrim just seemed like a waste. My only cheap option was to get a custom made black seat cover but it was still going to cost $150+ and I have never been a big fan of seat covers.

I decided that I was going to simply remove the back seat and try and put something in its place. It also would act as a bit of sound deadening compared to having nothing there.

REAR SEAT DELETE DIY

I ended up buying some thick black carpet from a store we used to get stock through while working at Autobarn and it was fairly cheap (even got a trade discount so ended up costing next to nothing!).

I got a lot more than I needed - around 2x2m and retail it would have only been about $60.

I test fitted it into the car and found out I obviously had a lot more than I needed. I cut it down to 160cm wide and 130cm long. While this is still more than what is needed, I cut it longer due to the way I was going to install it to make it neat. You don't have to cut it that straight as you won't see any of the cuts - as I will show soon.

I decided to use a strip of velcro along the full length of the parcel shelf to attach the carpet to. I have a custom MDF black carpeted parcel shelf so I simply used some small nails to hold the velcro in place. For the top of the material I folded it over about 3cm to get a very nice edge and so you couldn't notice where it joined onto the parcel shelf (hence not needing to cut it perfectly straight).

I did the same thing of folding the material down the bottom however here I didn't attach any velcro as it held in place perfectly.

For the edges I tucked everything in behind the plastic interior trimming. This is why I left the material so much bigger as the extra size ment I could really pack it underneath to stretch out the material and get it nice and flat without any crinkles in it (I swear I have a mild form of OCD because little shit like that really pisses me off).

I left the seat belts in the car (obviously you could remove them) so for the actual belts I cut a slit along the edge to allow the seat belt to be in its normal position and when everything is tucked in you can't even see the slit.

Now as far as legalities go, in QLD you don't need to register it as a 2 seater since you havn't done anything permanent to the car which would stop you from putting the seats in easily. (I'm not sure what the other states are like). Never the less, I simply printed this out:

http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/~/media/a1143ca0...torvehicles.pdf

And keep in under the rear seat delete material just in case I had a police officer question it.

So there you go, a very simple/cheap rear seat delete option that looks great and can easily be taken out if you need to put the back seats back in. If you really had an emergency and needed to take some one, you could still have some one sitting in the back, it just wouldn't obviously be that comfortable for them

Edited November 25, 2010 by PM-R33

[PM-R33]

As far as the rest of the interior goes, the next thing to get put in will be the aluminium R34 GTR V Spec II pedals from the group buy.

The other things still to do are:

-The roof lining and sun visors done in black and maybe remove the centre interior light and just keep the two front interior lights.

-A factory airbag steering wheel from another Nissan (I want to keep the airbag instead of going to something without one).

-The rear and front door cards in black (at the moment only the front are done in a carbon look vinyl that I want to get rid of).

I will do progress posts/photos as I go along

Edited November 25, 2010 by PM-R33

[.:: GimpS-R34 ::.]

what button you press for deleting the seat?

Also this part of the link you provided

"Modifications to vehicles are regulated in Queensland to ensure those vehicles remain in a safe condition."

Would have thought removing the actual seat and not belts would make your modification unsafe?

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

phil ur ride neva seems to stop impressing me bro.

looks fkn tuff bro...

[PM-R33]

what button you press for deleting the seat?

Lol I figured that was a given and didn't need to include the step of removing the seat

Also this part of the link you provided

"Modifications to vehicles are regulated in Queensland to ensure those vehicles remain in a safe condition."

Would have thought removing the actual seat and not belts would make your modification unsafe?

I had a good think about this aswell but the way I figured it was like this:

In a lot of new cars you can remove the back seats by pressing a few buttons and pulling them out. This is completely legal. You don't have to take the seat belts out.

So in my situation I thought leaving the seat belts in would make it better if a police officer questioned it as in essence, it is doing the same thing.

phil ur ride neva seems to stop impressing me bro.

looks fkn tuff bro...

Cheers Julz

Edited November 25, 2010 by PM-R33

[.:: GimpS-R34 ::.]

Yeah i mean you said delete not remove haha

also i thought it was ok as long as the seat belts were out.. maybe i'm wrong and i'm sure you won't get hassled anyway.. Especially if it's not daily driven anymore..

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

lol i just took the seats out and for neatness i cabletied the wires together...

[Munkyb0y]

i dun gettit. why pull the back seat out, unless for race or cage purposes?

if it's just for looks, then you should have retrimmed the seat in black , or something.

i dont like it. especially on a car that looks as shmick as yours. it's all empty and shit back there now.

[.:: GimpS-R34 ::.]

think it was the fact that he didnt wanna pay for retrimming when no one sits in the back..

[PM-R33]

Yeah that was the main thing. To get it retrimmed was going to cost me around $400+ and it just seemed like a waste when I hardly ever have any one in the back (also I wouldn't be able to afford to spend that for a while).

It looks good in real life and from outside the car it doesn't look like the back seat is gone, it just looks like a black rear seat

The best option would have been an Electra carbon fibre rear seat delete but they are rare as hell and cost an arm and a leg.

Edited November 26, 2010 by PM-R33

[DaveO74]

Jeebuz Phil you and I so often think the same way with modifications. This is exactly what I have in mind with mine but I want to somehow add my pair of 12" subs in the void where the seat used to be, me thinks I'll have to make up a light custom box so I can recess the speakers in there.

I might send you a pm later about where you got you seats from.....unless you want to post it here?

You car is ever evolving mate, still looks the goods IMO

[The Bogan]

I had to remove the rear seats because of the half cage legalities, painted it matte black and it looks good to go, only problem is now I can hear the fuel pump and alot more road noise, might have to get some carpet in there to muffle the noise a bit, hows yours for noise now.

[PM-R33]

My fuel pump without the rear seats is a bit noisy (Nismo in tank). But with the carpet there it is nearly back to being silent. The carpet is fairly thick but soft/spongy at the same time so doesn't weigh much at all. If you wanted to take it the next step furthur, a little bit of Dynamat or spray sound deadener would work wonders.

The other thing I noticed is once I put the carpet in the fuel smell was a lot less compared to just having the back seats removed.

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

i have a nismo intank pump in my 33 and its not that loud with the seats out.. Phil you KNOW you are just being a girl

you should try my ke70 with no interior at all... right into the boot where the 044 and surge tank just sit on the bare metal... of course you cant hear it over the welded diff anyway so meh

[Craved]

running Dynamat on the rear seat area will cost you just under 1 box of the 36 sqft bulk packs. i have 2 sheets left from my box after doing the whole rear seat area and the external 1/4 panels either side of the passenger seat.

just incase someone was considering it.

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

Yeah that was the main thing. To get it retrimmed was going to cost me around $400+ and it just seemed like a waste when I hardly ever have any one in the back (also I wouldn't be able to afford to spend that for a while).

It looks good in real life and from outside the car it doesn't look like the back seat is gone, it just looks like a black rear seat

The best option would have been an Electra carbon fibre rear seat delete but they are rare as hell and cost an arm and a leg.

PHIL bro.

please give me details about these bro, where? how much? something for a 34 ??

cheers bro

[PM-R33]

It is gorgeous isn't it!

A company called Electra made them for the R33 GTR (not sure if there were other models). They are no longer made and are rare as hell. I have never seen them in Aus, I came across them while reading on the UK forums.

http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/133801-electra-...e-r33-gt-r.html

Also one thing I forgot to mention is the weight of the rear seats.

The factory rear seat bottom section weighs in at 6kg and the top section 5kg. The new carpet weighed under 1kg.

So complete weight saving:

Front seats swap: -6kg

Rear seat delete: -10kg

So a total weight saving of 16kg without losing any real comfort and gaining a lot of visual appeal. If the rear seat belts were removed it would be another few kg's. Not too bad I think!

[Weapon]

Looks good dude, you will have to hear an external pump set up with no back seat and subsequent fuel smell haha. Was keen to do something similar to mine but will off the road for a while so it will get done eventually lol

[GUN_METAL_GTR32]

It is gorgeous isn't it!

A company called Electra made them for the R33 GTR (not sure if there were other models). They are no longer made and are rare as hell. I have never seen them in Aus, I came across them while reading on the UK forums.

http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/133801-electra-...e-r33-gt-r.html

Also one thing I forgot to mention is the weight of the rear seats.

The factory rear seat bottom section weighs in at 6kg and the top section 5kg. The new carpet weighed under 1kg.

So complete weight saving:

Front seats swap: -6kg

Rear seat delete: -10kg

So a total weight saving of 16kg without losing any real comfort and gaining a lot of visual appeal. If the rear seat belts were removed it would be another few kg's. Not too bad I think!

hay phil i got some more details about the rear seat delete, they were supplied by a dude on here, u know mattyneweraimports (the dude with all the amazing parts in the business traders section)

it was $7000.00 lol

been d/c for ages though

[PM-R33]

$7000!!! Fucking jesus christ!!