Why the different sized seat pedestals

[Elanlover]

Probably referred to by a differnt name but the seats in the Elan rest on 4 mounting "pedestals", one of which is 4 mm taller than the other three. My question is why? The reason I ask is that I'm installing new seats and want to know if I need to keep one side (rear outboard) taller than the rest.

If the larger one is due to the seat rails being 4mm higher at the back on one side then one would think that new seats wouldn't need this. If its due to a difference in the floor pan then I'll need to take this into consideration. Anyone know for sure? Perhaps someone has replaced their seats and kept (or not kept) the extra 4mm. If so, did you notice a difference? Thanks!

[Peter_W]

It's due to a difference in the floor pan at the rear outboard. I removed the pedestals to lower the seats, and added 4mm worth of washers at that corner.

[Monty]

IIRC it`s nothing to do with the floor plan, but to do with the metal runners as the metal is a double layer because of the seat belt mounting.

[Nige]

Think the floor pan is also a factor as I needed to use the taller pedestal (spacer) when I fitted the Exige seats to get the seat to sit straight (that was with Exige subframes and runners).

[Elanlover]

Well, that clears it up then

[Elanlover]

Simply for posterity's sake, after playign around with the refinished Porsche seats I'm installing I believe that its mostly (if not entirely) due to the floor pan. For whatever reason, the rear inboard seat mounting hole has what looks like a large metal washer glued to the floor. None of the other mounting holes eeem to have this (at least not on my car). I did not measure the thickness but my guess after eyeballing it is that the washer is about 3mm thick (possibly a bit thicker). There may also be something to what Monty has said regarding thicker runners on the inboard side due to the seatbelt mounting although one might think that the front mounting hole should have this washer too.

Bottom line for me is that if you're putting in new seats you need to raise the rear outbopard mounting hole area up by 3mm - 5mm depending on your seat construction.