I have wanted a bucket seat in my car for absolutely ages now. After picking up a Corbeau Sprint for a good price at Autosport it wasn't going to be long till it was fitted! 

Corbeau Sprint in Kevlar/GRP

Question was though, how to do it? I had a pair of Sparco sidemounts to bolt on, but I was fairly keen on finding a way to put the sidemounts on the standard runners as Mark has a need to drive the car now and again, both on road and on track. 

The first thing to do was to see how the new seat measured up on the width of its runners in comparision to the stock MR2 seat. 

 
Pic of original seat and steering wheel

We found that width of track where the sidemounts were was about 50mm too narrow. 

Sidemount on seat.

Mark found the answer to this problem though, by having the sidemounts the other way they were in 5mm of the desired track width. We already had a set stock slider rails from one of Mark's old seats, the idea was that we'd use Mark's latest toy (his new welder) to weld the sidemounts onto the original seat runners. 

Reducing the height of the sidemounts as they fouled on lapbelt guides

Original seat runners ground down and paint removed in prep for welding

The first job was to grind down the runners so as to ensure that there was a flat surface to weld too. We decided to weld 'spacer' plates on both rails as one had some raised metal work (one on right) in order to present a flat surface for the sidemount base to weld to.

Sidemounts with paint removed

Sidemount ready to be welded to the rail

Seat with one sidemount with OEM slider welded to it.

OEM runner on sidemount

Runners completed

Notches were cut out of the left sidemount to allow the slider mechanism to operate and ensure the correct width was attained for the runners

Seat installed. New Sparco wheel can be seen here

Pic showing seat with 6-Point harness

Pc showing how side mount was welded to the rail

As can be seen here there is now a lot of room behind the seat! FIA (stamp can be clearly seen)

Seat installed! Sparco black suede steering wheel  and 6-point harness completes the effect

We did a number of trial fits on the mounts and checked our measurements a number of times mainly because once the welding was done we couldn't undo it. Fortunately everything fitted spot on, first time. One issue with turning the sidemounts round the other way is that it does limit how low you can fit the seat. Driving the car back from the workshop with just the four-point harness on (am not wearing 6-point for the road) it felt like the car's suspension was stiffer, though it was of course the benefit of a rigid seat with no springs in it!   

More  to come, once I get a chance to get some pics in daylight!