RSX Seats

Might as well start a whole thread with the interest in these.

I picked up a pair of cloth seats from a 2004 Acura RSX.  The RSX ran from 2002-06 with a refresh in 2005. From what I've read, it seems as if the 05-06 seats are more popular for comfort, but these should be a large improvement over a stock S Truck.

I weighed the seats before making any modifications.
Driver: 47lbs
Passenger: 42.8lbs

I found one source claiming 80lbs for a pair of 2nd gen buckets, but would be nice to verify. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable number, though.

Anyone else feel free to chime in with anything you learn or work out.

Took apart the seats and looked into removing the airbags. Can't take out the whole module, but can remove the actual airbag without too much trouble.

Back of the seat has a zipper on either side which makes it easy to take apart.



The bottom of the seat cover can be unrolled and unclipped to access the zippers. They're both tucked up out of sight. I found that a right angle pick made it easier to use the zipper, but it moves well enough by hand too.



Flip the back of the cover over the top of the seat to access a single 10mm nut holding the airbag module in place.



The wiring harness and connector need to be unclipped from the bottom of the seat. There is one last clip hidden underneath the excess fabric on the seat bottom. Easy enough to pull it off the seat springs.





The module has two 10mm nuts on the bottom and the cover is clipped on 3 sides to the metal frame.







Pop off the nuts and unclip the cover and the airbag will come out with the cover. The airbag just drops out of the cover, which can then be clipped back onto the frame and reinstalled to the seat.



Airbags weighs about 23 oz with the harness. The frame of the module weighs about 8 oz. I didn't see any reason to try and cut it up for more savings at that weight.







The passenger seat also has a module for the passenger detection system on the console side of the seat. There's a plastic cover that snaps over top of it. I didn't get a picture of it installed, but remove it to access the module. The module is held in place by 2 large phillips screws. I suggest grabbing the largest phillips driver you have as mine screws were on tight and I definitely stripped one with a driver too small.



The rear of the module is welded to the bracket holding on the plastic cover, so after disconnecting the harness I pried off the front and removed the circuit board. I would have drilled out the welds, but didn't have a drill available while I had the seat apart.



Cutting off the harness from the seat back sensor nets about 8 oz of weight savings with the module. Probably another several ounces if the rear of the module is drilled off.



Final weight of the seats after removing the airbags:
Driver - 45.6 lbs
Passenger - 40.8 lbs

With the air hammer, a chisel bit, the drill and the cutting wheel the rails came off both the S10 and RSX seats without too much trouble.

Sitting the seats on the S10 floor brackets works, but even with the seat most of the way back it was too tall for what I'd like. Tight in the thighs to the steering wheel as well. I'm in the process of completely cutting up the stock floor brackets and using them similarly to the factory RSX mounts and welding just the ends to the rails. The RSX rails are also wider than the floor brackets, so without modifying them a universal setup like Rentedmule built by adding a plate ontop of the brackets will be needed.

I should be able to pull about an inch out of the height in the Blazer, but the floor in the 98 4x4 standard cab I have has a slightly different shape to it at the trans tunnel. There's a stamped in crossmember that for whatever reason has clearance for the seat built in the Blazer body that the S10 doesn't.

How does the seat belt latch compare between seats? Will the rsx couple to the s10 buckle? How does the load path look on each look?

How does the seat belt latch compare between seats? Will the rsx couple to the s10 buckle? How does the load path look on each look?

Load path looks good from sitting in the seat where I want it in the Blazer.

Buckle fits in the RSX clasp, but it doesn't latch. I meant to look or grab the belt from the yard today while I was there to compare the cutouts, but it completely slipped my mind. Doh.

Your information is good information that I am looking for.

Your information is good information that I am looking for.

Not quite sure if you're spam or not, but I do need to update this thread anyway, so thanks?

I ended up moving the driver seat both down and outboard to gain all the extra height I could. Unfortunately it still feels an inch or tow high compared to a stock S10 or Blazer seat. I tend to have plenty of headroom with the stock seats even with my tall torso, but I think it would be tight fit wearing a helmet in this truck with these seats. A notch or two on the recline might help. I also feel like I often have to lean forward to see lights, signs, or other road markings high up.

I didn't got through the same effort on the passenger side and often get comments from tall passengers, but again reclining the seat does make a difference.

The brackets are all modified from the original seat Blazer/S10 seat mounts.

Driver Side





This bracket took me quite some time.





It had quite the ways to go from the mounting stud, so I tried to box it in as best I could.



All the bolts are accessible like factory by moving the seat fore & aft.





Passenger Seat

Even without shortening the passenger mounts I still had to modify the brackets, but not nearly as much work as the driver side.  Basically made a double wide on the inside bracket because of the much wider distance between the rails on the RSX seats. Even with that they're still only sitting halfway on the S10 brackets.







Moved the spring mount for the passenger seat rearward 5" to line up with the RSX spring. It rubs a bit on the bracket, but I might just toss some felt tape on there or similar.  Everything works as the seat came from the factory, tilt forward included.



I disassembled the RSX rails from the seats to finish weld and powdercoat. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of this process, but had to drill out the internal slider stops before removing the plastic bearing retainers from between the rails. It was a painstaking process in both directions.

Here you can see again why I had to widen the inside bracket.









Pretty pretty powdercoat!

Turns out the S10 buckle does latch into the RSX clasp with one small modification.



I used the Bridgeport, but a Dremel would have sufficed to open up the clasp cutout completely.

Now they're the same!



I also took the connector stub from the seat belt sensor on the RSX and turned it into a conversion harness.





Black wire to terminal B on the 6 way inline seat connector and blue/red wire to terminal E. The green wire has signal when the seat is buckled, but the S10 doesn't care about that.



Glammer shots!

time to section the floor downwards for more seat room!

that p/c does look nice!

That was timely spam and a timely update. I'm going to swap my RSX seats into the truck sometime soon. My current race seats in the truck are a bit higher than stock and I do scuff my helmet on the roof but the high seating position is awesome for auto-X. My view of a course is so much better in the truck than in the firebird, where I feel like I'm sitting on the pavement.

Hadn't thought about the view of the road improvement. That's a good point.

You can probably line up the seat to the bolts the same as mine to see how far outboard I moved it. And to Ryo's point about sectioning the floor it's the tunnel that's the hold up, so wouldn't be sectioning out the whole floor just a small bit. Besides any seams would all be under the carpet. Most people would never know.